GOOD Speech by Brett Herron, GOOD Secretary-General & Member of the Western Cape Parliament:
The GOOD Party is here (Cape Town SAPS) to lay criminal charges against Western Cape MECs and senior officials who committed fraud by knowingly tabling falsely balanced provincial budgets in order to present a rosy picture of the province’s finances ahead of last year’s general election.
After the election, the MECs somersaulted, declaring a budget shortfall of R3.8-Billion in its Medium Term Expenditure Framework, and culling thousands of teacher posts. They blamed the shortfall on “developments” at national government level, singling out the public service wage agreement. But there were no major fiscal developments in the five months between their tabling their budgets and declaring the shortfall – and the province was fully aware of the public service wage agreement long before presenting its “balanced” books.
A dossier of evidence is being submitted to police along with a detailed affidavit.
The complaint follows an exhaustive investigation that included submitting parliamentary questions, asking questions in the province’s Standing Committee on Education, prompting a debate in the Legislature the matter in the Western Cape Provincial Parliament, and close scrutiny of speeches by the MECs, and minutes of meetings, to identify contradictions.
As far as the GOOD Party can establish, this is the first time in South Africa’s history that a government has been caught out tabling a false or fake budget.
The administration knowingly misled the legislature, the public, and employees, which constitutes criminal conduct under:
- Common Law Fraud
- PFMA Section 86 (Criminal Financial Misconduct)
- Forgery & Uttering
- Contempt of the Legislature – Powers, Privileges and Immunities of Parliament and Provincial Legislatures Act
Charges will be laid against then-Finance MEC Mireille Wenger (now Health MEC); Education MEC David Maynier, Provincial Accounting Officer Julinda Gantana (Provincial Treasury); and Brent Walters, Head of the Department of Education in the Western Cape.
GOOD believes the “balanced” budget was tabled just two months before the May 2024 election. The timing raises concerns of budget misrepresentation being used to manufacture public confidence and influence electoral outcomes.
The provincial budget tabled on 7 March 2024 included allocations for Cost of Employment in the Department of Education that were insufficient to fund all approved educator posts. A budget presented as sustainable and balanced was in fact unsustainable and deliberately skewed. Both the Finance and the Education MECs were aware of the shortfall but tabled a false and misleading budget, nonetheless.
GOOD Vision for the Future: GOOD envisions a South Africa where all citizens can thrive and live in harmony.
Scarlet Mary
Fun South African Fact: Some of the earliest evidence of human evolution has been unearthed at fossil sites northwest of Johannesburg in the Sterkfontein Caves! Archaeologists have discovered human remains here, some of which are more than 2 million years old! These discoveries have earned the area the title of “the Cradle of Humankind” which is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
ShadowFax
Fun South African Fact: South Africa’s natural and human fossil history dates back hundreds of thousands, even millions, of years. Early dinosaur fossils have been discovered in the Western Cape and up to 80% of mammalian fossils found so far have been discovered in the Karoo.