General Budget Debate: DA challenges ANC to allow opposition Chair for new KZN forensic investigations ad hoc committee
16 September 2020
The fact that KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) has to self-fund R6.3bn from internal sources, in order to provide for the Covid-19 relief programme, has left our province in an extremely vulnerable financial position. It is also evident that with the adoption of the 2020/21 Special Adjustments Budget, KZN is entering into an unchartered fiscal space – one which will test the limits of the effective functioning of the provincial state.
The reality is that there is little or no fall back mechanism, nor is there any chance of a bail out by national government. there is no chance of a bail out. If ANC-led provincial government gets it wrong, it will only have itself to blame. Finance Minister, Tito Mboweni, recently highlighted the fault lines when he stated, “Our public finances which reached an unsustainable position before the pandemic, are now overstretched. We will face tough choices in the coming month. We will have to make painful sacrifices and must be resolute in implementing desperately needed reforms.”
No matter how KZN slices up the fiscal pie, it will all come to nothing without the necessary vehicle to effectively utilize the allocations - everything else is moot and frankly irrelevant.
For some time now, the Democratic Alliance in KZN has been a proponent of developing an ethical capable state, or indicating the lack thereof. During the previous parliamentary term, this was in fact my mantra. Naturally, its merits were shrugged off by the ANC in this province even denying this challenge. They also went so far as to accuse me of being a prophet of doom, trying to score cheap political points and of course - the ANC’s fall back stance - nothing but a racist.