The People’s Budget campaign — made up of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, the South African Council of Churches and the South African NGO Coalition — called on Monday for this year’s Budget to focus more on service delivery and development.
”Generally, we hear a lot about business’s expectations from the Budget, which typically assume the benefits of tax cuts and a cautious fiscal policy,” a statement from the campaign read. ”For the majority of South Africans, however, the key questions centre on how government will use its resources to drive programmes that can create employment and overcome the social deficits left by apartheid.”
The People’s Budget campaign called for improved expenditure on social services and for the Budget to address poverty and the restructuring of the economy.
”That is, the structure of production, ownership of assets such as land, and access to infrastructure — in ways that support sustainable employment and raise incomes for the poor.”
The campaign also called for a more expansionary fiscal policy to address social needs and support sustainable growth, and for a review of monetary policy so that it does more to support sustainable economic growth and employment creation.
”This can be achieved through further reductions in real interest rates, on the one hand, and measures to discourage speculative capital inflows, on the other.”
In addition, the campaign said the mandate to the South African Reserve Bank must be modified to ensure it takes into account the effect of its decisions on growth, investment and employment.
In the coming year, the campaign said spending should be increased in areas such as education — with more bursaries and soft loans for students — and health care. More should be spent on health care in poor provinces, and on the accelerated roll-out of anti-retroviral treatment.
”Today, some 500 000 people need anti-retroviral treatment, but only around 75 000 people get it in the public sector,” the statement read. ”The shortfall spells death for tens of thousands.”
The campaign also called for an increase in housing subsidies, free basic services and an extension of the child grant to the age of 18. — Sapa