The North West’s Department of Finance has denied reports that it intends to return R17 billion of unspent provincial budget money to the National Treasury. This follows recent newspaper reports that the money is part of the province’s total combined budget of more than R57 billion.
“It is untrue based on two things, our adjusted budget for the province is R48 billion, so it is not R57.4 billion. As at end of March 2022, the province has spent R47.2 billion, which translates to 96% of that expenditure,” says the head of the provincial Department of Finance is Ndlela Kunene.
The claims made by the newspaper in the article are completely devoid of the truth and as a Provincial Administration, we reject them with the contempt they deserve.
— North West Treasury (@NWPGTreasury) April 3, 2022
The DA in the North West has called for more clarity from Premier, Bushy Maape.
“We are looking forward to the MEC of Finance and the Premier to come forward to tell us what is happening and what action he will be taking against the MEC who had failed to spend the money that was appropriated to the department. It might be true that the amounts are not that way, however, the finance department made a presentation to say that they are still going to be underspending because by the Q3 there was supposed to be 75% spent for every department. So they had indicated that when they get to April, there was no way that all departments would have spent 100%,” says DA’s Caucus leader Freddy Sonakile.
