Budget 2015: What leading activist organisations want to hear from Nene

Norms and standards for education, money to begin implementing National Health Insurance, improvements to Home Affairs offices, budget to implement a plan to combat gender based violence, money to fight corruption in the housing programme and money for improved sanitation are the key issues raised by the activists we spoke to.

One organisation, Equal Education, also gave examples of where money shouldn’t be spent, so that there is more available for improving life for the majority of South Africans.

Equal Education

Nombulelo Nyathela, spokesperson for Equal Education (EE), said:

“EE would like the minister to address the problem of funding of norms and standards for school infrastructure. In a statement we issued yesterday, we highlight ways how additional revenue could be collected for the improvement of school infrastructure.”

The statement, links to the organisation’s new report titled 15 ways to pay for decent schools, which focuses on expenditure that could’ve been avoided and expenditure that serves narrow middle class interests rather than the poor majority. Here are some examples it gives:

• R1.1 billion of fruitless and wasteful expenditure was reported for national and provincial government agencies reported by the Auditor General for the 2013/14 financial year

• R11,5 million in catering for the Mpumalanga legislature, ensuring that each MPL gets a free full English breakfast and lunch, and finger food if meetings do not end by 4pm.

• R47m spent on officials suspended for long periods for serious offences.

• Lost tax income due to 9,300 South Africans with annual incomes of more than R7 million each, or wealth of more than R75 million each, evading payment of personal income tax. The Minister has said that SARS was losing R19 billion or more each year because these rich people were not paying their taxes.

The EE statement says, “In the 2014/15, a little less than R10 billion was allocated for the two [Norms and Standards] grants combined. This is not enough to bring all public schools in line with the Norms and Standards.”

People Against Suffering, Oppression and Poverty (PASSOP)

Braam Hanekom, director of PASSOP, an organisation that campaigns for the rights of immigrants, told GroundUp:

“Passop would like to see an increase in the budget to the Department of Home Affairs. A serious upgrade is needed of Home Affairs offices so the department can help people especially foreign nationals. Any department that doesn’t have a big budget, like Home Affairs, will not be able to provide the necessary services.”

Sonke Gender Justice

Mateenah Hunter, Sonke’s Policy Development and Advocacy Fellow, told GroundUp

“Sonke would like to see gender-based violence (GBV) addressed in the budget speech and the upcoming budget. Specifically, we, along with our civil society partners (The GBV NSP Campaign Partners), would like to see funds allocated to a comprehensive national strategic plan (NSP) to address gender-based violence in South Africa.

Every year, GBV wounds, maims and kills thousands of South Africans. These women, children and LGBTI people are members of families, they are workers and they are voters. So significant is the scale of the epidemic of violence in South Africa, that KPMG estimates that it costs the country at least R28-40 billion per annum, a whopping 1% of our GDP.

We do not need new laws or policies. We need a national strategic plan to end GBV. The state must establish a GBV-prevention fund that will support the scale up of evidence-based interventions, as well as programmes that need to be researched and piloted. The state needs to dramatically increase funding for the overall national GBV response through ring-fenced allocations.

Additional funds must specifically be allocated to address the lack of resources available to the police, and strategies must put in place to use these funds to deal with high caseloads, delays, language barriers and the lack of accessibility of trained police officers. Resources must also be allocated to reduce high caseloads, lack of equipment and court backlogs in the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA). Funding for NGO service providers must also be significantly increased to expand the range and improve the quality of services available to survivors. The state has to ensure that departments responsible for sexual offences and domestic violence response, clearly budget for, and sufficiently resource their services.

The cost of government doing nothing is much higher than actually putting funds towards preventing GBV in the first place.”

Social Justice Coalition

Axolile Notywala, project manager at the Social Justice Coalition (SJC), which has been campaigning for improved sanitation in places like Khayelitsha, told GroundUp

“The SJC would like the minister to address the issue of water and sanitation, which was not addressed by the president in the State of the Nation Address. We want to know the budget set for water and sanitation especially the amount that will go into maintenance of sanitation structures. We also want to know whether the minister has looked into the report by the Human Rights Commission which shows the lack of access to sanitation. What is being done about that? Then there is the issue with land. We have been hearing about the Upgrading of Informal Settlements Programme, how much is going into this? Finally we would like to see the minister address the issue of how poor areas like Khayelitsha and Nyanga will be financed in terms of resources, like toilets, libraries and schools.”

Treatment Action Campaign

Marcus Low, the Treatment Action Campaign’s policy director, said:

“We would like to see progress on National Health Insurance (NHI). Financing of the NHI is long overdue. We have been getting promises for years now, but nothing has been done. We would like the an indication of the budget for the NHI.”

Unemployed People’s Movement

Gladys Mpepo of the Unemployed People’s Movement said:

“Right now I am in Grahamstown and we will be coming to Cape Town for the budget speech and we want the minister to address the big problem of housing. We want to know what will be done with the constant corruption of houses being sold, an issue we have been raising for years. Will money be put in to fight this corruption?”