Equal Education (EE) Researcher, Jane Borman said the finance minister doesn't necessarily have to throw more money at the Department of Basic Education (DBE) as there are issues of overspending and irregular expenditure.
The Equal Education Researcher also insists that the DBE needs to be provided enough funding to ensure all learners have quality education and equal opportunities.
The proposed sufficient funding to the department must however be accounted for by the DBE through a well planned oversight to ensure responsible spending, Jane said.
Reports claimed that National Treasury continued to fail to prioritise basic education and had demonstrated that through the supplementary budget tabled in June by Tito Mboweni, cutting R2.1 billion from the overall budget of the department.
The EE challenges the finance minister, Godongwana to set the DBE budget by ensuring the basic needs such as water, sanitation, and safe school structures are met.
Jane said when these basic needs are not met, they pose challenges to the department and affect the quality of education delivered to learners.
We call on National Treasury to ensure that public schools get enough money so that learners’ right to basic education is realised.
In a Joint venture which includes Public Service Accountability Monitor (PSAM), EE released a media statement yesterday under the burner of Budget Justice Coalition (BJC).
The statement introduced a research paper which dealt with budget cuts looking at the upcoming Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) by Godongwana today.
The BJC research paper explored issues of spending money irregularly through fruitless and wasteful expenditure.
The education activists further claimed insufficient funding by the Minister of Finance as the root cause of dysfunctional operations in the DBE.
The EE Researcher, Jane said there hasn't been enough focus from the finance minister to supervise finances given to the DBE which led to irregularities and unaccounted loses.
Minister of Finance, Enoch Godongwana is expected to deliver the MTBPS on Thursday afternoon.
