Budget speech highlights

Social grants to increase

Delivering his annual budget speech on Wednesday finance minister, Nhlnanhla Nene, announced the number of people depending on social grants are estimated to increase from the 16,4 million people recorded in 2014.
The Social Development Vote was therefore increased by R7,1 billion to facilitate increases in old-age, war veterans, disability and care dependency grants by R60 to R1410 a month.
Child support grants will increase to R330 and foster care grants to R860.

Good news for schools
The school infrastructure backlogs programme is allocated R7,4-billion for the replacement of over 500 unsafe or poorly constructed schools as well as to address water, sanitation and electricity needs, Nene said.
At tertiary education level the National Student Financial Aid Scheme is projected to spend R11,9-billion in 2017/18 which will support further university enrollments and also at technical and vocational colleges.
Nene also announced that all books delivered to schools from January next year will be managed through a centrally negotiated contract and that plans for new shcool buildings will be standardised with construction cost controlled by a centralised chief procurement officer. “For too long , we have paid too much for school building projects.”

Clarity for developers
National government seems set on bringing clarity to the murky area of bulk infrastructure contributions for developments in municipal areas.
This has been a bone of contention, especially in fast growing municipalities such as Lephalalae, where developers often expressed their concern over the allocation of these funds once paid over to municipalities.
On Wednesday Nene said amendments will be proposed to the Municipal Fiscal Powers and Functions Act to clarify the rules surrounding the bulk infrastructure charges and to ensure an equitable and transparent system of contributions by land developers.

From April a central database for suppliers to government will be established. People and businesses wishing to do business with the State will only have to register once to be on this database, which will significantly reduce pressure on small, and medium enterprises.