Following the budget speech delivered by Minister Tito Mboweni earlier today, Brown will have to explain how the province plans on settling its Eskom debts, cut costs and eradicate wasteful expenditure.

Mboweni, in his national budget speech on Wednesday, alluded that wasteful expenditure and energy deficiencies are amongst key challenges crippling the country. He also mentioned that over 18 million of the youth are neither in education, training or employment, which is a worrying factor. Coupled with Mboweni’s commitments, Brown will on 5 March have to explain how she is going to ensure that plans announced by Premier Sisi Ntombela in the State of the Province Address (SOPA) will be materialised. In an interview with OFM News on Tuesday, Brown confirmed the challenges experienced in the province and the big task ahead of her.

“Largely, the people in the Free State are unemployed and reliant on Sassa. We are not generating sufficiently in our Free State economy to ensure that we have sufficient funds within our fiscal to carry out all the plans. So, we are relying very heavily on conditional grants from national. We are looking into the formula in terms of equitable shares and we are also looking into growth within municipalities. So, our budget is very small and we have to find mechanisms within the budget to look at these plans and be able to implement them”.

Ntombela in her Sopa on Tuesday vowed to address the scourge of youth unemployment, drought and the water crisis experienced in the province, as well as the ailing state of municipalities, amongst others.

OFM News