The 2013 Budget provides for a continued growth and spending, and provides for the three-year public service wage agreement signed last year.

• 2013 Budget to take the National Development Plan (NDP) as a point of departure and takes its long-term vision;
• Good news: No Tax increases this year, and there’s personal tax relief of R7billion;
• Tax revenue was lower than expected due to weak economic growth and disruptions seen in the mining sector and others;  
• As a result, no extra spending than reprioritisation;
• Incentivise youth unemployment;  
• Spending budget from now on will be based on the 2011 Census, which showed that 62 percent South Africans now stay in cities;
• As a result, Municipal Infrastructural Grants (MIGs) will be adjusted accordingly to take this change into consideration;
• Government to share the costs of expanding job opportunities with the private sector;  
• Debt will remain stable and just higher than 40 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP);and
• Provinces provided more than 40 percent of the overall budget to spend on health, education and other basic services.   

 On Health:

•  Alongside social assistance, access to health care is a vital element in the social wage;
• There has been progress in reducing mortality and improving our HIV and TB programmes, and an expansion in medical and nurse training capacity is under way; 
• Pilot national health insurance projects have been initiated this year in 10 districts, and will include improvements to health facilities, contracting with general practitioners and financial management reforms;
• A new conditional grant is introduced this year to enable the national Department of Health to play a greater role in coordinating these reforms; 
• The initial phase of National Health Insurance (NHI) development will not place new revenue demands on the fiscus;
• Over the longer term, however, it is anticipated that a tax increase will be needed;
• The National Treasury is working with the Department of Health to examine the funding arrangements and system reforms required for NHI;
• A discussion paper inviting public comment on various options will be published this year; 
• Consolidated spending on health and social protection is R268 billion in 2013/14;
• Health infrastructure remains a priority;  
• In 2012, a total of 1 967 health facilities and 49 nursing colleges were in different stages of planning, construction and refurbishment (in 2011 government announced that 105 nursing colleges will be revitalised countrywide); 
• Substantial improvements in the social assistance payments system are in progress, providing easier access by recipients to their grants; and
• The cost of social grants payments has been reduced from R32 to R16 per disbursement. 

Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa
www.denosa.org.za