EC education to spend R358m less than budget

The Eastern Cape education department will spend an estimated R358.8-million less than its full budget of R29.48-billion in the 2015-16 financial year.

This was revealed in a report tabled before a portfolio committee on education in the Bhisho legislature on Tuesday.

“The department’s total expenditure as at the end of September 2015 is R13.5-billion which represents 46% of the total budget,” the department’s accounting officer Siza Netshilaphala said in her report on expenditure trends from April 1 to September 30 this year.

Part of the programmes hampering expenditure included:

• Delays in filling critical administration posts amounting to under-expenditure of R8.5-million;
• Delays in paying performance bonuses, among others, resulting in close to R53.2-million unspent;
• Delays in filling infrastructure development posts amounting to R2.9-million unspent; and
• Late payment of early childhood development (ECD) practitioners amounting to unspent R12.8-million.

Netshilaphala said this was because the contracts of ECDs were terminated annually.

In addition, the department spent R11.2-billion on salaries as at the end of September, which was just 47.5% of the budgeted R23.6-billion for compensation of employees (CoE).

In the 2014-15 financial year, the department spent 97.7% of its total appropriated budget of R28-billion.

UDM chief whip at the Bhisho legislature Thando Mpulu said the continued under-spending was indicative of past interventions by treasury having failed. — msindisif@dispatch.co.za