Healthy increase in provinces' share
Finance minister Trevor Manuel has been generous to the provinces, which have been given an extra R42,9bn over the next three years - on top of what was allocated to them in last year's budget. This is the largest adjustment to the 2006 budget and means that provincial budgets will increase by a healthy 12% a year over the next three-year period.
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Education - Not enough to scale the mountain
Education has again received the largest chunk of government spending - one-fifth of the national budget. Expenditure will total R92,1bn for the 2006/2007 financial year, up from R83,6bn in 2005/2006.
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Skills development - time to train
Finance minister Trevor Manuel has announced that learnership tax allowances introduced in 2002 will be extended for another five years to further boost skills development.
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Land reform - Gaze at the fields; go back to the desk
Land reform in SA faces a setback because delays in buying land this financial year led to projected underspending of almost R1bn. As a result, funds allocated to land acquisition will be scaled back in the next two years for all programmes except land restitution.
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By Invitation - Better health for more
In last year's Budget review I argued government had set the stage for the introduction of social health insurance and bringing a larger proportion of the uninsured population into the health-care system. The launch of the Government Employees Medical Scheme last month consolidates this trend.
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By Invitation - HIV/Aids budget needs action
The magnitude of the Aids epidemic in SA is underlined not only by the 5,4m people estimated to be HIV-positive, but also by the budget's staggering R6,7bn in grants to provinces to address the epidemic over the next three fiscal years. This is in addition to the discretionary provincial budget allocations for HIV and Aids.
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Criminal justice - A slow, patchy improvement
Budget 2006 continues the drive in criminal justice expenditure of recent years to boost capacity by increasing personnel, training and facilities for the prosecution of offenders.
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Defence - Headless chicken syndrome
The annual payment for the strategic arms package drops this year - from R6,33bn to R4,54bn - for the first time since 2000/2001, when SA started paying off the multibillion-rand package of jets, helicopters, submarines and frigate warships.
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