provincial budgets
Barry Streek
South Africa’s nine provinces do not come cheap – their legislatures are budgeted to cost taxpayers R346,9-million during the current financial year, with R42,6- million going to the executive councils and R108,4-million to ordinary members.
This means that 43,5% of the costs of the provincial legislatures are allocated to salaries of MECs and MPPs. A further R17- million is spent on senior staff in these legislatures.
The most expensive legislature is Gauteng’s, costing R69,9-million, while the cheapest is the Western Cape’s, which costs R22,5-million.
The total cost of MECs’ salaries ranges from the Northern Cape’s R5,5-million to the Northern Province’s R4,1-million.
The most expensive provinces for MPPs salaries are KwaZulu-Natal (R22,3-million), the Eastern Cape (R17,8-million) and the North-ern Province (R10,7-million).
The cheapest are the Free State (R6,9- million), Mpumalanga (R7-million) and the Western Cape (R7,9-million).
These figures were disclosed in Parliament by the Minister for Provincial and Local Government, Sydney Mufamadi, in reply to a question from Motsoko Pheko of the Pan Africanist Congress.