Minister De Lille announces plan to reduce spending on state funerals

PUBLIC Works and Infrastructure Minister Patricia de Lille said on Tuesday that funding spent on state funerals will be reduced by about R11 million in the next three years.

“Under the prestige programmes for government functions, state visits and funerals will reduce from R94 million in 2021/22 to R83m in 2023/24.

“The department is continuing to implement austerity measures, mainly for the state functions, hence the decreasing budget over the medium term for this programme,” De Lille said.

She made the statement when she tabled her budget vote speech in the National Assembly.

The expenditure on state funerals has been a topical concern amid reports that service providers managing the funerals were allegedly inflating invoices for services rendered.

The department is engaged in a process to blacklist Croacia Events from doing business with the state.

This happens as the presidency is reviewing the state funeral policy for prominent persons amid reports that the recent funeral of Struggle veteran Andrew Mlangeni cost about R35 million.

During her address, De Lille said the department’s allocation over the medium term was R25.5 billion.

She said the budget allocation for the 2021/22 financial year is R8.3 billion.

De Lille said the transfer payments to the Property Management Trading Entity (PMTE) and expanded public works programme (EPWP) is R7.3 billion.

She added that the EPWP will be disbursing allocations to eligible public bodies to the tune of R1.18 billion to various sectors,

The breakdown per sectors is as follows;

• R1 billion for environment and culture and the social sectors R1 billion in non-state sector;
• R414 million in the social sector.

De Lille said R4.2 billion has been allocated to the PMTE to focus on refurbishing and maintaining government buildings and developing 12 small fishing harbours.

“An amount of R 945.7 million is allocated to DPWI specific infrastructure projects and is used for R256 million for used for land ports of entry.”

She said R116 million is allocated for dolomite risk management where government buildings that were at risk to collapse because of a dolomite sinkhole and doline problem, especially in Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Limpopo, North West, Northern Cape and the northern part of the Free State.

De Lille also said R23 million is set aside for the retrofitting of facilities that have not catered for people with disabilities.

She said R20 million was a projected spend for this financial year for refurbishment to parliamentary villages to ensure that they are compliant.

There was a R35 million projected spend in this financial year for the refurbishment of the parliamentary precinct.

The minister said that R131.7 million would be spent on other infrastructure projects and R199 million for precinct development in cities to support efficient and integrated government planning by grouping departments that provide similar services.