Jeff Radebe, Minister in the Presidency for Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation
Radebe was speaking following a four-day Cabinet Lekgotla. The minister said an action plan to ensure greater expenditure on municipal infrastructure maintenance and to enforce proper financial asset management will be developed and implemented to extend the lifespan and quality of the infrastructure assets. Radebe reported that approximately R1.3 trillion of assets are at jeopardy because of a lack of maintenance. “The issue of maintaining the infrastructure that we have plays a key role in advancing the agenda of the National Development Plan (NDP), so the financial asset management in municipalities must be strengthened.” Water saving and minimising water losses continues to be government’s priority and agreements with municipalities which have high water losses are to be complemented and a clear funding model is to be completed by September 2016, Radebe reported.
Striving forward with the NDP
Radebe also spoke about the NDP, stating that cabinet is working on reprioritising the budget to align it with the NDP and the Medium–Term Strategic Framework. Government has also identified a set of budget priorities for 2017/18 that focus on maintaining infrastructure spend, strengthening support for skills development and maintaining real levels of spending on the poor.
Work on identifying efficiencies and savings over the remainder of the MTEF will continue, said Radebe.
Major projects to boost economy
Radebe further went on to say that President Jacob Zuma will chair an Inter-Ministerial Committee on Investment that will coordinate 40 priority investment projects across government. These projects include agro-processing and agri-parks, energy and infrastructure, manufacturing and services projects. According to Radebe, the 40 projects were selected based on having a high-scale economic impact linked to the Nine-Point Plan, as well as the opportunity for work to begin within the next two years and their ability to bring in further investment and community benefits.
Adapted from SAnews.gov.za 
