GOOD Speech by Brett Herron ,
GOOD Secretary-General & Member of the Western Cape Parliament
03 December 2024
Note to editor: This speech was delivered by GOOD Secretary-General and Member of the Western Cape Provincial Parliament, Brett Herron, during today’s Debate on Western Cape Finance MEC Deidré Baartman’s Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement
The GOOD party supports all the adjustment budget votes, besides education.
In March, the provincial Education Department tabled a fully funded and balanced budget, only to change its mind – or something – six months later when it declared a shortfall of R687m.
At last week’s portfolio committee meeting none of the MEC, HOD or CFO could provide an explanation.
They want us to believe that the reason for their having to get rid of teachers is an unaffordable public service wage agreement, but ultimately conceded in the committee that this was false.
They were aware of the salary increases when they tabled their balanced budget, which provided for hiring extra teachers – not firing them in their thousands.
So, what’s going on, and why is it only going on here, in the Western Cape?
Did Education table a deliberately misleading budget in March? Was it an error?
A fake budget was tabled in March in this parliament. Surely, we cannot accept that? Who bears the responsibility of investigating how a misleading budget was tabled and adopted. Heads must roll and the Premier has a duty to act.
Speaker…
Parents of children at public schools, for whom fewer teachers mean more crowded classrooms, require honest answers from this government.
To begin with, you need to tell them the truth about the Western Cape’s shifting of Billons of Rands it receives from national government for education… to spend on discretionary programmes. Over the next three years the province will spend R8 Billion on such programmes.
It’s like having enough money to buy proper food to feed your family, but choosing to spend the money on sweets.
How does this square with your story that terminating 2400 teacher posts is unavoidable?
Have the MEC’s for Education and Finance stopped talking to each other, or what else lies behind their conflicting statements?
The MEC for Finance announced a reallocation of department funding, plus Education will get an extra R250m from Provincial Treasury, and flexibility to use another R600 Million that had been earmarked for infrastructure and is now “unearmarked”.
Those measures would give the department manoeuvrability, and “there will be enough funding within the department’s budget to deal with the projected pressure”.
But the MEC for Education continues to insist that culling teachers remains unavoidable. It is unavoidable in order to protect other “critical areas” like learner transport, he says.
How does this square with the cancellation of critical bus routes in areas such as Ceres and Tulbagh, leaving hundreds of children stranded?
Speaker…
Numbers don’t lie.
If the Education MEC declares a mysterious R687 Million shortfall, to which the Finance MEC responds by freeing up R850 Million to plug the gap, why doesn’t the Education MEC want to grab the lifeline?
Who and what really lies behind the Western Cape’s determination to double down on what is patently a self-induced crisis which will have an inevitable negative effect on education standards?
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