Rosho's statement follows a meeting between her, various MECs and heads of departments in that province. This as she held her Provincial Medium-Term Expenditure Committee (PMTEC) engagement on the imminent budget reduction of their baseline budget. The warning by Rosho comes amidst a report that the province‘s departments are amongst some of the worst offenders and those failing to pay for services rendered to them in time. She says with the envisaged budget cuts, departments and entities should learn to deliver services within the projected reduced baseline.

“It’s a watertight shoestring budget and we need to live with what we have. As a country we are not doing very well in terms of economic growth and the budget cuts will affect all departments and public entities. Sometimes we need to take hard and unpopular decisions and it is about time we make our people understand where this country is going," she adds. "For us to survive we need to ask ourselves how do we create an enabling environment for economic growth and development."

"The weeklong engagements were part of a budgetary process conducted annually in October by Provincial Treasury and were attended by MEC’s, Heads of Departments, Chief Financial Officers and senior managers where they demonstrated how they can respond to budgetary constraints and economic challenges facing the country," Rosho further adds.

The departments and public entities also made presentations on a number of expenditure aspects relating to financial and non-financial performance and what remedial plans have been put in place to jack up spending where perennial underspending challenges had been encountered.

They also demonstrated where savings can be realised in line with cost containment measures without impacting negatively on effective and efficient service delivery mechanisms.

She cautioned that it cannot be business as usual and consequence management must be implemented where spending is not realised. She said all future budget proposals must be accompanied by a credible business plan and the principle of “no business case, no plan, and no budget” will be implemented.

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