Gauteng Provincial Government departments spent a total of R18.6 billion in the first quarter of the 2013/2014 financial year. This represents an increase of R500 million compared to the same period last year.
The information is contained in the Gauteng Provincial Treasury’s GPG State of Finances Report for the First Quarter that Finance MEC Mandla Nkomfe presented to the Gauteng Provincial Legislature today.
The provincial expenditure was driven by departments such as Education, Community Safety and Social Development.
Key to Social Development’s service delivery mandate is the social welfare services programme which is focused mainly on child care and senior citizen support functions, including cushioning the vulnerable from the social ills. In the first quarter, a total of R343.3 million was transferred to non-profit institutions mainly towards the child care protection services, HIV/AIDS, and care and services to older person’s sub-programmes.
Community Safety spent significant resources in this quarter facilitating the monitoring of 10 police stations, manning 915 speed operations, weighbridges and enforcement of traffic regulations relating to roadworthiness, which resulted in 256,000 road side vehicles being checked.
Provincial revenue collected increases year on year
The provincial government continues to optimise revenue generated from various sources including interest earned from investments, motor vehicle licenses, gambling and betting taxes and hospital patient fees. In the three months period to June GPG collected R998.9 million or 25.15% of the annual projection.
This figure is R165.466 million more than the collected revenue during the same period last year. It means that for the remainder of the current financial year, an average amount of R992.9 million per quarter must be collected to meet the targeted projection of R3.972 billion.
The Gauteng Department of Roads and Transport was the main driver of the performance in this regard. It was followed by the Department of Economic Development, Gauteng Department of Health and the Gauteng Provincial Treasury.
“The provincial treasury continues to work with GPG departments to ensure own revenue optimisation. The approved GPG own revenue enhancement strategy is aimed at assisting departments improve revenue collection and management while the own revenue forum charter will amongst others assist in ensuring accountability over implementation of decisions made in this platform,” MEC Nkomfe says.
“We certainly believe that projects such as the upgrading of provincial Driver License Testing Centres will contribute further to revenue improvement,” he adds.
John Sukazi
MEC Spokesperson
Tel: 011 355 2161
Cell: 083 772 4885
E-mail: john.sukazi@gauteng.gov.za
