KZN Office of the Premier and KZN Treasury roll out debt prevention programme for KZN government employees
The Office of the Premier and Head of KZN Provincial Treasury have today joined hands to officially launch a much-needed debt combat programme for government employees in Richards Bay, King Cetshwayo District.
This programme was initiated due to the high number of government employees that are drowning in debt as a result of uncontrollable spending patterns. The analysis conducted on this subject shows that from 2012/13, the government’s education sector had 11 365 while in the health sector it was 6 061 and these are numbers of employees that have been garnished by different companies.
Mzwandile Gumede, Employee Health and Wellness Director in the Office of the Premier said this programme I geared towards helping government employees to get themselves out of debt.
“We are saying to all employees, there is help out there. They must not commit suicide. We have brought an assortment of government agencies that deal with debt-related issues and wise financial management,” said Gumede.
Gumede said these campaigns will be taken to all districts in the province.
Magagula said it was understandable when employees get into debt when buying items such as property and other forms of assets, but it was important for employees to avoid spending unnecessarily on food, clothes and entertainment.
“The problem is that some people are financially ill-disciplined. That is what they must learn to deal with first. But for those that want to get out of debt, there are lessons they can learn from how our KZN government got out of debt. In 2008/9, the province was in overdraft.
We were paying R50 million annually to service R2.9 billion overdraft. We had to cut budgets and introduce cost cutting measures. While this is not a pleasant thing to do, but it had to be done for us to get out of debt. We are therefore saying getting out of debt is possible,” said Magagula.
For clarity contact:
Musa Cebisa
Cell: 071 6878 777
