Western Cape government's mini-budget criticized on how it handles crime-fighting

Opposition parties have questioned the province’s mini-budget and say it did not go far enough towards fighting crime. Picture: Martin Hill/ African News Agency(ANA)

Opposition parties have questioned the province’s mini-budget and say it did not go far enough towards fighting crime. Picture: Martin Hill/ African News Agency(ANA)

Published Nov 27, 2019

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Cape Town - Opposition parties have questioned the province’s mini-budget and say it did not go far enough towards fighting crime.

On Wenesday, the MEC for Finance and Economic Opportunities, David Maynier, tabled the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement and the 2019 Adjusted Estimates of Provincial Revenue and Expenditure, in which he said the province would spend R1.3billion to train and deploy 1000 law enforcement officers to fight crime, especially violent crime, in the Western Cape.

Good party MPL Brett Herron said the premier had promised to spend R1bn a year on the safety plan, but would only spend “R1.3bn over the next four financial years including what is left of this one”.

“I’m worried that the government has created massive expectations around the safety plan and putting R1bn a year towards it, when what we see is R130million this year, R400m for next year, R350m for the following year, and R400m the next year.”

Herron said: “We don’t actually have a safety plan that itemises how this funding will be spent. The premier over-promised and now has horribly under-delivered.”

ANC Shadow MEC for Finance, Nomi Nkondlo, said: “While we welcome the issue of the provincial government trying to find resources to respond to the challenge of crime in the province, especially on the Cape Flats, we are concerned because we do not believe that the only way to deal with crime is just as a social problem. It must be balanced against one of the fundamental problems that actually creates crime - exclusion.”

“We want an inclusive economy to improve the social economic profile of those communities, and we will be raising these issues in our debate on Thursday,” said Nkondlo.

Maynier said: “The biggest risk to the provincial economic outlook is the national government in South Africa, which continues to mismanage the economy, mismanage our public finances, and mismanage our state-owned enterprises.

“We now face large budget cuts that risk wiping out service delivery in provinces across South Africa, while the national government’s inability to make tough decisions leaves us with significant uncertainty as to how the budget cuts will be applied in the province.”

Deidré Baartman, the DA Western Cape Committee Chairperson Finance, Economic Development, and Tourism said: “It’s concerning the impact that (bailing out) the State Owned Enterprises is going to have on all the provinces, not just the Western Cape, because not only are our provincial transfers going to be reduced by R23 billion, and that includes our equitable share which is going to be reduced R7.3 billion and our direct conditional grants which will be reduced by R13 billion (according to the 2020 MTEF propositions).

“Meanwhile if national government doesn’t come to an agreement with the labour unions on the public sector wage bill, it is likely that a further estimated R87 billion is going to be cut from provinces. This has not been factored into the current budget. If it does happen, it will be further cuts on service delivery when we already cannot cut any further. We’ve already cut as much fat as we can,” said Baartman.

@MwangiGithahu

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Cape Argus

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