Plans, achievements and current projects shared during 2021/22 budget speech
MBOMBELA - The provincial legislature recently held its annual policy and budget speeches.
MECs from every department had the opportunity to explain their goals for the upcoming fiscal year and how they would utilise their allocated budgets to achieve these.
Members of Parliament (MPLs) from the various political parties then had a chance to pose questions to the MECs.
A recurring theme in most of the speeches was the effect of Covid-19 on the performance of each department. The National Treasury in its budget speech this year announced that the total money allocated to provinces would be decreasing every year for the next three years. This means that all departments have been forced to work with less funds.
According to StatsSA’s latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey, Mpumalanga recorded 15 000 net job losses in the first quarter of 2021, bringing the provincial unemployment rate to 47,6%.
Here are some of the projects, plans and achievement that were presented.
Among other projects, Premier Refilwe Mtshweni-Tsipane, during her Office of the Premier 2021/22 budget and policy speech said R90 million has been allocated for this financial year for supporting youth entrepreneurs.
“An amount of R90 million (which includes the allocation for the previous financial year) has been allocated in this financial year for supporting youth entrepreneurs. The project will be rolled out in a two-phased approach.
“Young people without requisite skills to develop bankable business plans, but who are keen to establish businesses, have been identified and through targeted mentoring, coaching and training programmes will be capacitated. The disbursement of the fund will be done through MEGA,” she said.
Mtshweni-Tsipane said currently 700 applications have been received from the youth of Mpumalanga.
“It is therefore an honour to table the budget of the Office of the Premier, and I accordingly request the house to approve the amount of R383 904 000 for the 2021/22 financial year,” she said.