Mpumalanga MEC Pinky Phosa aims to accelerate in priority areas

Mpumalanga MEC for finance Pinky Phosa on Friday announced that her department had been allocated R255, 340-million for the 2012-13 financial year.

She said the main focus for the department during the financial year would be on programme activities that would accelerate the advancements made in priority areas.

The priority areas include provincial budget management, supply chain improvement initiatives and other interventions that would improve public accounting.

Phosa said the budget represented a 15% increase from the budget allocation of the financial year that ended March 31.

She said the budget included a special allocation of R8m towards the improvement of capacity of municipal and departmental officials'' ability to effectively implement the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) and other related Treasury regulations.

Phosa also announced an additional amount of R7.5m had been allocated to enable the department to provide bookkeeping and auditing support to section 21 and no-fee schools as well as government-subsidised non-government organisations in the province.

"The allocation of these resources will go a long way in establishing and sustaining a good working relationship between the organisations and the departments of education and health and social development.

It is also a major step towards improving accountability for public resources that are allocated to support these public-funded institutions," said Phosa.

She said the provincial government had made progress in reducing expenditure on administrative support programmes.

"The expenditure on administrative support programmes has been reduced from 11.4% in 2009 to 6.6% this year.

The reduction of budgets on administration programmes will enable the provincial government to deliver the required level of quality services within our fiscal means, while also ensuring the budget is allocated to programmes for delivery of community services," Phosa said.

She said the department was also championing a number of interventions to improve provincial supply chain, audit, budget and expenditure management.