This comes after Auditor-General, Kimi Makwetu, last month released local government's audit results for the 2017/18 financial year and indicated that none of the municipalities in the Free State received a clean audit. Speaking from the provincial legislature's Fourth Raadsaal building in Bloemfontein as she delivered her 2019/20 budget vote speech for her office, Ntombela said this year, she will ensure that departments across the board spend less.

Delivering her speech under the theme: "Let's grow South Africa together as we celebrate 25 years of freedom", which is also in line with President Cyril Ramaphosa's earlier State of the Nation Address (Sona), Ntombela said these cost-cutting measures will form part of her plans for the administration in her department. In her speech, she refers to all the administrative plans for the current financial year as "Programme 1" and explains that through this programme, she will focus on the human capital in the provincial government. She will do this by intently focusing on the cluster, security and financial management of all the provincial government's departments and through working with the relevant stakeholders, mitigate corruption. "Programme 1 has been allocated R71,828 million) to fulfil its role," Ntombela says. 

She adds that R54,870 million will be for the compensation of employees, and goods and services have been allocated R16,080 million.

OFM News