Western Cape MECs accused of R3.8 billion budget cover-up

GOOD party Secretary General Brett Herron has laid a criminal complaint against two Western Cape MECs, alleging that the pair hid a multi-billion-rand budget shortfall from Parliament. 

The 2024 Western Cape Budget was tabled in March 2024, two months before the May 2024 general elections. 

Herron claimed that then-Finance MEC Mireille Wenger and Education MEC David Maynier hid the R3.8 billion shortfall in the education department to paint a rosy picture of the province’s finances before the last general election. 

Spokesperson for the Provincial Education Minister Maynier, Kerry Mauchline, acknowledged the complaint.

“We are currently studying the affidavit and will provide a substantive response in due course,” Mauchline told Newsday.

The alleged shortfall relates to underfunded posts in the Department of Education, said Herron. This resulted in the province cutting 2,000 teachers’ posts five months later in August 2024. 

The provincial government blamed the job cuts on the impact of the 2023 public-service wage agreement and national budget cuts. 

The public-service wage agreement mandated an average salary increase of 7.5% for public-service workers. 

For the 2024/2025 financial year, the Education Department approved 37,135 educator posts; however, the allocated funds were insufficient to cover the costs. 

According to Herron, Treasury and education officials have since acknowledged in committee meetings that “nothing changed between March and August”.

In November 2024, Head of Education in the Western Cape, Brent Walters, revealed that the first signals of the budget shortfall were seen in the previous financial year.

Herron added that Wenger mentioned the financial impact of the Public-Service wage agreement and national budget cuts when she tabled the Western Cape’s adjusted budget in November 2023.

In March 2024, Maynier said in the Provincial Legislature on the Education Budget vote that “this is the largest budget that we have ever tabled.”

The DA has not issued a statement on the matter as of yet.

The accusations

“After the election, the MECs somersaulted,” Herron said. “Declaring a budget shortfall of R3.8 billion in its Medium Term Expenditure Framework and culling thousands of teacher posts.”

Herron is accusing the two MECs of common-law fraud and forgery, and for uttering, a charge of knowingly submitting false financial documents in parliament. 

Herron claims the two are also in breach of Section 86 of the Public Finance Management Act for financial misconduct by accounting officers. They also face claims of misleading the legislature. 

“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,” Herron said. 

In an interview with Newzroom Afrika, Herron drew parallels between this and the recent news that about 1,200 teachers in the Western Cape that resigned in the last financial year. 

“When you cut 2,000 educator posts, what you do is you burden those teachers that remain in the system, with overcrowded classrooms, and you burden the children with poor quality education,” he said. 

He added that these teachers are working under extremely difficult conditions, and it is not surprising that they are leaving to find employment elsewhere. 

“Budgets are not political speeches; they are legal documents that determine how billions in public money are allocated,” he said. 

A dossier has been submitted to the Cape Town Central Police Station by GOOD following the party’s own investigations.