Cape Town - President Jacob Zuma on Friday released his end-of-year statement listing his government’s successes, but mentioning very little of the events of the past week which was seen in many circles as a defining moment in his presidency.
In line with government’s spending priorities, Zuma expanded on government’s progress in education and healthcare - the two departments which receive the biggest slice of the budgetary pie.
On education, Zuma said since 2009 government had spent R1.8 billion on early childhood development (ECD), a key pillar of the National Development Plan, with 948,768 beneficiaries nationally.
“Over 1.5 million children access ECD from 26 000 registered ECD programmes. Government pays a subsidy of R15 per child per day for 264 days of the year,” Zuma said.
On government’s Accelerated Schools Infrastructure Delivery Initiative (ASIDI), first launched in 2011, Zuma said his government delivered 123 “state-of-the-art schools”.
“A further 520 schools were provided with water, 395 were given decent sanitation and 293 were connected to the power grid. These interventions have been life-changing to the learners and educators at these schools.”
Student uprisings
And no pronouncements on education would have been complete without mentioning the student uprisings which saw tens of thousands of students bringing virtually every university campus in the country to a standstill.
Hundreds of students stormed Parliament while then finance minister Nhlanhla Nene — whom Zuma axed last week in a move that sent tremors through the markets and prompted an embarrassing climb-down from the president — was delivering the country’s medium term budget policy statement.
Zuma responded with an announcement that there will be a zero percent university fee increase for 2016, and that he would appoint a task team to look into how government would fund this.
“A short-term solution for the no fee increment is already in the process of being implemented. The R2.3 billion that is required will be shared by government and universities at 83 percent government and 17 percent for universities,” Zuma said.
“Universities have already received allocation letters addressing the financial shortfall. The government portion of the shortfall will be transferred to institutions in January 2016 and the rest in April 2016.”
Zuma said he would announce a commission to look into promoting access to higher education early in the new year. Students have made a further demand of free education, which the president told Parliament was an aim the ruling party was ultimately working towards, but could not afford at present.
Ramaphosa’s role
Turning to state-owned enterprises (SOEs) companies, some of which are draining the public purse, the President indicated his deputy Cyril Ramaphosa would retain an oversight role.
And he also echoed a warning given to parastatals this week by new Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan to exercise spending discipline.
“As we stated in the past week, support will be done in a fiscally sustainable manner and no entity will dictate to government how it will be supported,” Zuma said.
Zuma said government was trying to buffer households from the devastating impact of the current drought experienced across South Africa, which saw government declare five provinces — North-West, KwaZulu-Natal, Free State, Limpopo and Mpumalanga — disaster areas.
“While approximately 2.7 million households or 18 percent of the total national population are affected by the drought disaster; interventions are in place to ensure that all communities are serviced and receive water,” he said.
Government’s commitment to the nine-point-plan, announced by Zuma in his state-of-the-nation address in February this year, was also emphasised.
According to Zuma, government’s clothing and textiles competitiveness programme, launched in 2010, has helped retain 68,000 jobs in the sector, while 6,900 new jobs were created.
He added that the Jobs Fund, which he launched in 2012 had approved 108 project applications of which 85 were already being implemented.
“A total of R5.6 billion in grants has been committed to the 108 projects. These project partners have committed R7.9 billion in matched funding,” he said.
“The 85 projects have to date created 60,675 new permanent jobs and an additional 30,358 persons have been placed in vacant positions on a permanent basis.”
African News Agency (ANA)