The Gauteng Provincial Government has surpassed income generated from its revenue sources for the third consecutive year, an indication that the measures introduced during this term of government to enhance provincial revenue growth to fund public service delivery programmes are working.
Total revenue collected by the province as at end of March amounted to R3,946 billion. This means that government exceeded its targeted collection for the financial year by R166.981 million.
“At the beginning of this term of government in 2009 provincial Own Revenue Generated – the money that Gauteng collects from, amongst others, interest earned on investments, motor vehicle licenses, gambling and betting taxes and hospital patient fees – was on the spotlight with emphasis placed on Treasury to optimise collection and for GPG departments to present credible revenue projections. We therefore spent a considerable amount of time putting the necessary measures in place to improve collection going forward,” Finance MEC Mandla Nkomfe explains.
The majority of GPG departments exceeded their 2012/13 financial year adjusted appropriation when it comes to revenue collection. Even those departments that under collected such as the Gauteng Department of Education, Department of Infrastructure Development and the Department of Sports, Arts, Culture and Recreation surpassed a 90% mark of their adjusted appropriation.
The four main revenue collecting departments in the province performed well in the year under review and were able to surpass their targets as follows:
- Department of Economic Development estimated to collect R663.762 million in the 2012/13 financial year, and the collection to date amounts to R721.756 million. It is also an increase from the R614.726 million audited collection of 2011/12 financial year.
- Gauteng Department of Health collected R476.961 million which is more than their annual projected figure of R471.551 million. The department’s current collection is up R27.599 million or 6.14% from the last year’s audited revenue of R449.362 million.
- Gauteng Department of Roads and Transport’s 2012/13 financial year adjusted appropriation is R2.406 billion. To date the department managed to collect R2.459 billion. The current collection is an increase of 7.71% or R176.032 million compared to audited 2011/12 collection of R2.283 billion.
- Gauteng Provincial Treasury collected R187.828 million. The 2012/2013 financial year’s collection has surpassed the 2011/12 audited collection by 14 % or R23.070 million.
In South Africa, provinces are funded through transfers in the form of Provincial Equitable Share (PES); Conditional Grants (CG) and Own Generated Revenue (OGR). PES accounts for a bigger proportion, followed by CG whilst OGR contribute the least to the total provincial funding envelope.
“We must maximise the opportunities provided to us by the intergovernmental fiscal system to improve revenue collection in the coming years in order to fund provincial outcomes, which include improving the quality of the public education system, provision of quality health care services and facilitating inclusive economic growth,” Nkomfe says.
“As were said before, the demand for public services is growing particularly in Gauteng due to in-migration. This increase is unfortunately not matched by government revenue growth trends. As a result, we must intensify measures to collect revenue from our sources because every rand counts when it comes to resourcing our outcomes,” he adds.
Contact:
John Sukazi, MEC Spokesperson
Cell: 083 772 4885
Tel: 011 355 2161
E-mail: john.sukazi@gauteng.gov.za
