Bongani Majola
Gauteng’s economic growth plan, Blue IQ, will pour R100-million into investments in the provincial eco-nomy over 10 years and aims to generate 100 000 jobs, finance and economic MEC Jabu Moleketi said in his budget speech this week.
The R22,5-billion budget sets aside R744-million for the plan, that focuses on 10 key projects. Tourism, technology, transport and high value-added manufacturing are areas designated for multibillion-rand development.
Gautrain, the rail-bound mass transit service in the Johannesburg-Pretoria
corridor, has been allocated about R2-billion over the next three years. A call for tenders has been announced and “the train is on schedule for 2006”, Moleketi said.
He expected about 42 000 jobs to be created during the construction phase that starts next year, alone. “During operations 1 220 direct jobs will be created and a further 39 000 down-stream job opportunities will arise. The project is estimated to add between 0,7% and 1% to the gross geographic product.”
More than a third of the budget goes to health and security, with education accounting for the largest slice of expenditure. This is largely due to the increase in learner numbers from 1 096 million in 2001 to 1 148 million in 2002.
Significantly, there has been a marked decline in personnel expenditure
from about 60% last year to 50% in the current financial year. This was achieved without retrenchments, Moleketi said.
Health expenditure sees a 7,4% growth from current estimated expenditure to
R7,2-billion for 2002/ 2003. This is seen to reflect Premier Mbhazima Shilowa’s announcement that Gauteng will roll out nevirapine to all public hospitals.
The budget shows strong growth in infrastructure spending, with the allocation for capital expenditure growing from a base of 6% in 1995/1996 to 15% in 2002/2003.
Unusually, Moleketi’s speech acknowledges the weaknesses in the provincial delivery machinery. “We do remain concerned with our capacity to implement capital projects”, Moleketi said, echoing the sentiments of the provincial leader of the New National Party Johan Kilian.
Opposition parties generally welcomed the speech, with the Inkatha Freedom Party saying the “budget does not hold any surprises and builds on the budget of the last two years”.