By Simon Nare
Despite widespread criticism and rejection by some political parties in Parliament, President Cyril Ramaphosa has hailed the 2025 budget as a tool that will address unemployment and alleviate poverty.
Writing in his weekly newsletter a week after the fiscal framework and revenue proposal won by a narrow margin in the National Assembly, Ramaphosa said the budget has laid the foundation to social spending.
The president said the budget was provided to drive development, eradicate poverty and narrow inequality.
“The 2025 Budget makes adjustments to allocations to municipalities to enable them to address their infrastructure needs, improve service delivery and improve their revenue collection systems.
“In a challenging economic environment – both locally and globally – this year’s Budget supports measures to drive growth and relieve the effects of poverty. At the same time, it aims to stabilise public finances and continue to reduce our national debt,” wrote the president.
He said the budget would allow the government to push the recruitment drive for civil servants and reflected the strategic priorities of the Government of National Unity, which were inclusive growth and job creation, reducing poverty and tackling the high cost of living, and building a capable, ethical and developmental state.
Ramaphosa said once the 61% spending on debt repayment had been taken out in the next three years, this amount would be spent on the social wage.
He said over the past 24 years, the government has implemented an indigent policy under which free water, electricity and sanitation services were provided to qualifying households.
“Social grants, like the childcare, old age and disability grants, are another tool for alleviating poverty. This year, the value of these grants will increase at above inflation. The Social Relief of Distress grant, which has played an important role in poverty alleviation, will also be extended for another year,” he said.
Ramaphosa said as part of improving access to healthcare, there would be a higher allocation of funding to clinics and community health centres. And the government would invest in the recruitment and retention of health personnel, particularly doctors and nurses, and employ newly qualified doctors after their community service ended.
He added that the budget allocated substantial funds to other frontline services such as teachers, police, emergency personnel and the Border Management Authority.
The president said budgetary allocations had been made to support teacher training, for expanded mother-tongue bilingual education and for early reading programmes.
“To encourage entrepreneurship, funds have been made available to support small businesses. Adjustments are being made to the Employee Tax Incentive to further incentivise businesses to hire more young people.
“South Africa’s expenditure on the social wage can only be sustained if there are higher levels of economic growth. The Budget allocates considerable resources to encourage infrastructure development, which drives growth and job creation,” he said.
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