​Gauteng News
As custodians of public finances, the Gauteng Treasury has recommitted to ensuring that public money is protected and spent effectively and efficiently to improve the lives of people.
With a Budget of more than R792 million for the 2022/23 financial year, the department will use its resources to improve revenue collection to maintain and enhance provincial spending on education, health care, and social services. This will include the growth of infrastructure spending through on and off-budget initiatives.
Resources will also be directed to further cut waste, eliminate corruption, strengthen public accountability, and towards the transformation of the economic landscape to be more inclusive and sustainable.
This is according to the Gauteng MEC for Finance and e-Government MEC Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko who tabled her Budget Vote at the provincial Legislature in Johannesburg, on Friday, 20 May 2021.  
For the financial year, Nkomo-Ralehoko announced that the province will improve revenue collection which would maintain and enhance spending when transfers from the National Government are declining.
In April, the department launched the Revenue Enhancement Strategy which is anchored by two pillars and constitutes 16 revenue-generating projects. 
Nkomo-Ralehoko said the strategy aims to increase revenue generated from the province over the next three years by R3.7 billion over and above the 2022 Medium-Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) revenue baseline estimates. 
Through the Financial Governance business unit and the War Room on Clean Audits, the department will continue to implement interventions to support departments, municipalities, and entities to improve the management of their finances.
"Through this War Room, we will unleash the collective knowledge to address provincial government challenges in these four areas: litigation, consequence management, payment of invoices within 10 to 30 days, and transformative procurement", said MEC Nkomo-Ralehoko.
In response to Premier David Makhura's call to strengthen fraud detection on contracts, Nkomo-Ralehoko said her department introduced compliance checks on procurement transactions with thresholds of between R500 000 and R1 million. 
In partnership with the Gauteng Infrastructure Financing Agency (GIFA), Nkomo-Ralehoko said the department will deliver robust and sustainable infrastructure projects such as the Rooftop Solar PV, Phase 1 which will lead to 11 provincial hospitals harnessing close to 10MW of their electricity power from rooftop solar PVs. 
The public healthcare facilities to benefit from this project are the George Mukhari Hospital, Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital, as well as Laudium, Mamelodi, Tembisa, Yusuf Dadoo, Carletonville, Tshwane, Heidelberg, Edenvale, and Steve Biko hospitals.
Nkomo-Ralehoko said this will alleviate the burden on the national grid while supporting the objectives of the Gauteng Integrated Green Energy Strategy. An agreement between the South African National Space Agency (SANSA) and other parties is in the pipeline. This will result in the acquisition of operating space at the Innovation Hub's Enterprise Building 3.
For the 2022/23 financial year, the MEC said the department has set aside R63 million to fund GIFA's operations. 
"So far, 74% of the R157 million allocated to the Project Preparation Facility has been committed. This money has funded over 20 feasibility studies of infrastructure projects that have been sourced from provincial departments and municipalities in the past 6 years."
She announced that the construction of the Jewellery Manufacturing Precinct (JMP) within the OR Tambo International Airport Precinct has commenced.
In the Southern and Western Corridors, a feasibility study and business case for the Sedibeng Fresh Produce Market has been completed. The R500 million project will create approximately 6000 direct and indirect job opportunities.  
Other projects that GIFA is leading in the current financial year, are the Bokamoso BaRona Initiative, Merafong Bio-energy Park and West Agri-Park.