Education, health, housing and social services are set to be the biggest beneficiaries of additional funding when the Appropriation Bill is approved.
Parliament is interrogating the Appropriation Bill in order to implement it by no later than the end of July.
Government continues to preach a budget ceiling but there are departments which will receive additional funding.
The total appropriations amount to R814 billion and this excludes provincial equitable share and debt service costs.
Higher Education will receive an additional R7.2 billion. Health will get R700 million more.
Housing will have an additional R518 million to work with and social services get R327 million more.
In the main budget of R1.5 trillion, debt service costs, transfers and subsidies as well as the wage bill remain the biggest expenditure items.
These account for 94% of the budget. The biggest spenders of the R163 billion wage bill are police, defence, correctional services, justice and higher education and training.
Meanwhile, public sector unions have been demanding wage increases of CPI plus 3% for junior employees and CPI plus 2% for mid level employees.
But it seems Treasury has budgeted below this demand.
“When we do the budget for the compensation of employees, it would be CPI plus 1% which will cater for the progression. So we don’t differentiate between the different levels,” said Public Finance/Treasury DDG, Dr. Mampho Modise.
