Treasury on first quarter Provincial Budgets and Expenditure Report

Provincial Budgets: 2017/18 Financial Year: First Quarter Provincial Budgets and Expenditure Report

1. Published by the National Treasury in terms of Section 32 of the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA), this provincial budget statement of receipts and payments covers spending for the first quarter (April to June 2017) of the 2017/18 financial year. The statement is available on the treasury website at www.treasury.gov.za.
2. The information in the statement comes from the Section 40(4) PFMA reports submitted by heads of provincial departments to provincial treasuries, who, in turn, submitted the information to National Treasury. Queries on spending or budget numbers should therefore, in the first instance, be referred to the head of the relevant provincial department, and in the second instance to the head of the relevant provincial treasury. Queries on conditional grants may be referred to the head of the national department that administers the grant.
3. The budgeted figures for the first quarter are based on the 2017 Estimates of Provincial Revenue and Expenditure which were presented to provincial legislatures during March 2017.

Overall Expenditure Trends – First Quarter

4. In aggregate, provincial spending for the first quarter is R134.5 billion, or 24.4 per cent, of  combined  annual  budgets  of  R551.9 billion.  This  represents  an  increase  of 6.2 per cent or R7.9 billion on the expenditure of R126.6 billion for the same period last year.
5. Education expenditure for the first quarter is R56.2 billion or 25.1 per  cent  of  the R223.9 billion combined education budgets, an increase of 6.4 per cent or R3.4 billion on the first quarter for the previous financial year. It remains the largest item on provincial budgets (40.6 per cent).
6. Health expenditure totalled R46.2 billion, or 26 per cent, of the R177.9 billion combined health budgets, and is the second largest item on provincial budgets (32.2 per cent). This represents an increase of 10.5 per cent or R4.4 billion on the first quarter for the 2016/17 financial year.
7. Social development expenditure for the first quarter is R4 billion or 21.1 per cent of the R19 billion combined social development budgets.
8. Personnel expenditure (compensation of employees) is in aggregate R82.5 billion or 24.5 per cent of the budgeted R336 billion as at 30 June 2017.
9. Goods and services expenditure for the first quarter is R26.2 billion or 24.8 per cent of the R105.7 billion combined goods and services budgets.
10. In aggregate, expenditure on combined capital (payments  for  capital  assets)  is R7.5 billion or 21.2 per cent of budgeted R35.3 billion. This is an increase of 11.9 per cent on expenditure for the same period of the 2016/17 financial year.
11. Capital expenditure by provincial education departments is R2 billion or 19.2 per cent of the budgeted R10.2 billion. This is R76 million or 3.7 per cent less than the expenditure for the first quarter for the previous financial year.
12. Expenditure on capital by provincial health departments is R1.6 billion or 16.6 per cent of the budgeted R9.8 billion, which is R76.5 million or 4.5 per cent less than the first quarter for 2016/17.
13. The biggest share of provincial capital budgets is for the public works, roads  and transport departments (34.5 per cent), whose expenditure is R3 billion or 24.7 per cent of the combined capital budget of R12.2 billion.
14. Provincial own revenue collected for the first quarter is R4.4 billion or 24.9 per cent of the budgeted own revenue of R17.5 billion. By the end of the first quarter, national government had transferred R110.3 billion of the equitable share and R24 billion of conditional grants to provinces.
15. A more detailed analysis of the expenditure outcome as at 30 June 2017 is set out in Annexure A.

For the complete statement go to http://www.treasury.gov.za/publications/PiP/2017_18/Q1/