The Eastern Cape Provincial Government was dealt a R3,476 billion blow during the Provincial Adjustments Budget tabled in the Eastern Cape Legislature today, which was cut from the province’s equitable share for compensation of employees from national government. MEC of Finance, Mulungisi Mvoko announced that the huge cut in employee funding had been offset, in part, by dipping into the Province’s financial reserves to the tune of R2 billion. This …


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R43-million of taxpayers’ money has been invested into a failed dairy farm project in Port St Johns, in the Eastern Cape, that currently produces just 350 litres of milk a day. The Mantusini Dairy project was established on 373 hectares of communal land in Ward 7 in the Port St Johns Local Municipality and should benefit some 500 individual households under communal tenure. Instead, it is has become a shining …


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Despite the recent rains, there has been little improvement in the dam levels across the Eastern Cape, and the provincial government seems to have no long term plans in place to address the challenges that the ongoing drought has brought. Farmers are buckling under the immense pressure of an ongoing drought that has seen the national Department of Water Affairs slash water extraction rates for agricultural use. Across the province, …


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Instead of helping businesses weather the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic fallout of the subsequent lockdown, the Eastern Cape government appears dead set in driving the final nail into the coffin, by withholding billions of rands owed to their service suppliers. This came to light during a briefing from the Eastern Cape Provincial Treasury to the Finance Portfolio Committee on the state of the provincial fiscus yesterday, ahead of the …


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The tabling of the Eastern Cape Adjustments Appropriation Bill later this month is a unique opportunity for the ruling ANC to batten down the hatches and ensure that we survive the worst economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. It presents a unique opportunity to ensure that government plays the enabling roll that local business so desperately needs to survive. The economy of the Eastern Cape will not be spared the …


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Seven boreholes within an area of 5,8194 million hectares. This is the extent of the drought aid assistance that the Eastern Cape Department of Rural Development and Agrarian Reform will spend on farmers in the drought-plagued Sarah Baartman District. This is a slap in the face of farmers in the Sarah Baartman district who have been battling prolonged drought conditions for six years. This will also have a devastating impact …


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National government have made R35 million available for drought relief funding that, while welcomed, is woefully inadequate to meet the needs of farmers who have been severely impacted by the worst drought on record. This is in response to the application submitted in November last year, where the province asked for R643 million in drought assistance from National Treasury, and comes at a time when Provincial Treasury has already projected …


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The Eastern Cape Provincial Legislature have adopted a pre-pandemic budget, despite being hit by the biggest health care crisis in a century. Even though the Eastern Cape Health Department is collapsing under the pressure of increasing COVID-19 infections, the province has adopted a budget with almost no additional funding for this struggling department. The Democratic Alliance accepts that it is impossible to address all of the inherent, historically fiscal problems …


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