The DA urges the Minister of Finance, Nhlanhla Nene, to reject the Minster in the Presidency, Jeff Radebe’s bid to increase his department’s budget from R366 021 000 to R1 011 011 000 by the 2017/18 financial year until full and comprehensive substantiations for this increase have been made to Parliament.
 

 
This comes after the Portfolio Committee on Public Service and Administration and Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation heard yesterday that Minister Radebe intends to create over 750 new posts in the Presidency in the medium term, needing an inflated budget to do so.
 

 
This enlarged budget in the Presidency could only serve to deepen the ANC’s crony network by opening up further opportunities for cadre deployment.
 

 
In times that demand government austerity, Minister Radebe must be condemned for requesting billions more be ploughed into a public wage bill that already costs the taxpayer R450 billion a year.
 

 
As such I will be writing to both, Treasury and Minister Radebe, urging Treasury to not grant Minister Radebe’s request until a full submission has been made as to the reasons for this budget request, and to Minister Radebe himself to provide clarity on the following:
 
 

• Why he is to expand the department so rapidly;
• What these new positions will be;
• What the specific functions of these positions will be;
• Whether these functions cannot fall under the existing framework rather; and
• Ultimately how an astronomic budget increase will help the Minister better discharge his mandate?

 
The DA believes that government should exercise stringent fiscal discipline and apply itself to finding more austere alternatives to achieving the same outcomes.

 

Issued by DA