Gauteng govt defends its underspending as Treasury takes back R6bn of budget allocation

JOHANNESBURG - The Gauteng government has defended its underspending and Treasury taking back some of its allocation to the province.

It said Statistics SA’s latest Census 2022 results listed Gauteng as the country’s most populated province, with over 15 million people living in it, while that was not the case. 

National Treasury relies a lot on census data when it comes to allocating money to provincial governments. 

The more people living in a particular province, the more money it gets from Treasury. 

Presenting the province's mid-term adjustment budget on Tuesday, Finance MEC Lebogang Maile said Treasury said the population figures were incorrect.

Maile said the province received a letter from Treasury saying that its population size had been overstated. 

"As a result, National Treasury is taking an additional R6 billion away from our budget. So, we have lost it, our budget is minus that amount in the next five years."

Earlier this year, demographers from the University of Cape Town (UCT) published a paper that concluded that the Census 2022 data was not fit for purpose.

However, Stats SA stands by its data, saying the paper is unfounded and misleading.