THE Eastern Cape government has implemented a virtual hiring freeze for the next three years in an effort to address the size and cost of the bloated civil service.
In the cash-strapped environment we are in and with the slow economic growth predicted over the medium term, that is a welcome sign of realism from a government inclined in the past to nurture false hopes.
“Going forward, employment should strictly only be considered in areas where critical skills are required, and only when properly motivated in terms of performance improvements,” the provincial treasury said in documents released with finance MEC Phumulo Masualle’s budget on Thursday.
That comment is borne out in the fiscal and numerical personnel forecasts.
The Treasury’s three-year medium term plan sees the number of staff in the education department rising by only 52 to 82088 by March 2015. The department of health is pegged at 50853 for the next three years and the department of rural development will lose more than 50 staff over the period, shrinking to 3367.
While the government is tough with its departments, however, the provincial legislature has awarded itself 93 of the total of 302 new positions that have been budgeted for over the coming three years.
Under the duress of the moment, it surely is wrong to take a third of the marginal increase for administration when schools and hospitals are crying out for help.
Just yesterday, the Daily Dispatch reported that women in the maternity ward of the Frere Hospital had been made to swab their own ward and to change their own beds because the hospital was so short of staff.
We commend Masualle for starting to fight down the number of people clogging some public service departments, but we urge that he must continue to look closely at the actual needs of the ordinary people who contribute to these state salaries, even if it is only through the VAT they pay on their food.
We need teachers who teach, nurses who nurse and construction engineers who build things, not more paper pushers.
Masualle’s budget was bleak in almost every respect, with the national government cutting forecast increases in its contribution to the running of the Eastern Cape by R5.1-billion by 2015.
Compared to what the province is expected to actually spend in the financial year now drawing to a close, the forecast spending for the year from April grows by about half the expected rate of inflation.
In real terms, the government has less and less money to build and run the services the province needs.
This is partly a consequence of the emigration from the Eastern Cape to other provinces. The Financial and Fiscal Commission allocates the funding available for provinces according to population size, so as we shed numbers across our provincial borders, our government gets ever less money to manage the needs of those who stay behind.
Spending to fix up schools is seen growing slightly faster than inflation, but annual spending on hospital infrastructure – that excludes staff and medicines – is set to halve over the three-year planning period.
Overall, infrastructure spending is seen falling sharply from R7.3-billion this year to below R6.0-billion next year and R6.6-billion by 2015.
Masualle’s message is that money is tight – probably tighter than ever since 1994 – and it is time to halt the helter-skelter expansion of the public service.
Our message is then please make sure every cent is well spent – and on the right services and people.
Our Opinion: Spending priorities key
In the cash-strapped environment we are in and with the slow economic growth predicted over the medium term, that is a welcome sign of realism from a government inclined in the past to nurture false hopes.
“Going forward, employment should strictly only be considered in areas where critical skills are required, and only when properly motivated in terms of performance improvements,” the provincial treasury said in documents released with finance MEC Phumulo Masualle’s budget on Thursday.
That comment is borne out in the fiscal and numerical personnel forecasts.
The Treasury’s three-year medium term plan sees the number of staff in the education department rising by only 52 to 82088 by March 2015. The department of health is pegged at 50853 for the next three years and the department of rural development will lose more than 50 staff over the period, shrinking to 3367.
While the government is tough with its departments, however, the provincial legislature has awarded itself 93 of the total of 302 new positions that have been budgeted for over the coming three years.
Under the duress of the moment, it surely is wrong to take a third of the marginal increase for administration when schools and hospitals are crying out for help.
Just yesterday, the Daily Dispatch reported that women in the maternity ward of the Frere Hospital had been made to swab their own ward and to change their own beds because the hospital was so short of staff.
We commend Masualle for starting to fight down the number of people clogging some public service departments, but we urge that he must continue to look closely at the actual needs of the ordinary people who contribute to these state salaries, even if it is only through the VAT they pay on their food.
We need teachers who teach, nurses who nurse and construction engineers who build things, not more paper pushers.
Masualle’s budget was bleak in almost every respect, with the national government cutting forecast increases in its contribution to the running of the Eastern Cape by R5.1-billion by 2015.
Compared to what the province is expected to actually spend in the financial year now drawing to a close, the forecast spending for the year from April grows by about half the expected rate of inflation.
In real terms, the government has less and less money to build and run the services the province needs.
This is partly a consequence of the emigration from the Eastern Cape to other provinces. The Financial and Fiscal Commission allocates the funding available for provinces according to population size, so as we shed numbers across our provincial borders, our government gets ever less money to manage the needs of those who stay behind.
Spending to fix up schools is seen growing slightly faster than inflation, but annual spending on hospital infrastructure – that excludes staff and medicines – is set to halve over the three-year planning period.
Overall, infrastructure spending is seen falling sharply from R7.3-billion this year to below R6.0-billion next year and R6.6-billion by 2015.
Masualle’s message is that money is tight – probably tighter than ever since 1994 – and it is time to halt the helter-skelter expansion of the public service.
Our message is then please make sure every cent is well spent – and on the right services and people.
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