Cape Town - Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan's Budget Speech was widely welcomed on Wednesday with organised business and youth formations lauding the commitment made towards skills development and employment creation for young people.
National Youth Development Agency chairperson Andile Lungisa welcomed the R5 billion youth employment subsidy announced by Gordhan, saying the body will be engaging government more on the scheme.
Earlier Gordhan said the National Treasury wanted to implement the subsidy in the 2012 financial year - from 1 April 2012. Details of the youth employment subsidy are set out in a discussion paper, for further consideration by Parliament and Nedlac.
"I think all of us, we are very happy about the pronouncements today and of course a lot of engagement still has to take place but what is important is that the minister has been very clear that the focus of government has to be around youth development as a whole because if you talk about young people you talking about the majority of this country," Lungisa said.
He added: "If you talk about unemployed and those who live in poverty it is the young people who are mentioned so we are very happy that our own government is committing so that the problem is addressed."
Young Communists League Secretary Buti Manamela welcomed the R6 billion announced by Gordhan towards the National Student Financial Aid Scheme.
"We think all of these interventions are an important package in ensuring that young people who want to enter institutions of higher learning feel the value of democracy.
"We welcome the focus on skills for young people and entrepreneurship and also more focus in terms of ensuring that more opportunities are presented for our youth and we believe that if most of these things are ultimately done we will go a long way in youth development," said Manamela.
Business Unity South Africa's Jerry Vilakazi said the increased spending on infrastructure was key for business development and job creation.
"It's very important in terms of improving the competitiveness of our economy, almost for the first time there has been a very strong focus on the role of SMMEs in creating jobs and indeed that is a very positive move we were always concerned that some of the interventions that we have had coming from government have not really focused on incentivizing small business," he said.
He added that the tax cuts and the R9 billion jobs funds provided space for young entrepreneurs but said business was concerned over the alarming increase in the public service salary.
Gordhan announced that the wage bill in government departments doubled to more than R300 billion in the past five years. Vilakazi argued that considering the service delivery challenges facing the state, it was "unjustifiable" that the bill had surged to the amounts mentioned in the budget.
Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa, whose ministry received more than R2 billion additional funding to increase personnel, also said the money will be used on visible policing and recruitment of the much needed detectives and forensic specialists in the force.
"What the minister has told us today was just a reinforcement of what the President alluded to recently that we need more capacity in the police, what this means is that we are increasing the police quantitatively and qualitatively with the intention of beefing up visible policing as a driving force in the fight against crime and as part of the recruitment, we will be looking into specific areas that are scarce within the SAPS," said Mthethwa.
