The Gauteng department of health has for the second time received the biggest slice of the provincial budget, getting R50.8bn to deal with its financial problems.

Gauteng’s total budget for the 2019/2020 financial year, presented by finance MEC Barbara Creecy on Tuesday, was R132.5bn, representing an annual increase of 9%.

The provincial health budget exceeded that of education, which received a total budget of R49.4bn. In the past two decades, education has always received the highest allocation but that had to change in order to deal with problems facing the health department.

Of the R50.8bn that health received, R30bn will go into funding salaries. This will include R346m for employment of interns and R310m for the absorption of community health workers.

The department was allocated R17bn to pay for goods and services, which include R1.6bn to pay off accruals.After the fire that destroyed the department’s head office in the Johannesburg inner city, R150.1m was allocated over the medium term expenditure framework for it to obtain suitable accommodation.

Through the office of the premier, R300m has been set aside to compensate families of the victims of the Life Esidimeni tragedy.The Gauteng department of health has been prioritised by the provincial government as it faced serious problems due to billions of rand in accruals and also litigation for medical negligence.

However, Creecy said things were beginning to stabilize. “There is a payment plan with the big suppliers. What we are trying to do is to make sure that the smaller suppliers are paid off. Litigation has been centralised in the office of the premier… the idea is that we should not have a situation where, because we don’t defend the cases properly, there is all kinds of exploitation of government that goes on. We certainly feel from our side that there is a better [way to] handle litigation and better planning in terms of how it is managed,” Creecy said.

In education, R3.7bn was allocated to public schools, early childhood development sites and special schools. Gauteng provincial treasury also gave the department R2.9bn for special schools which cater for pupils with intellectual and other disabilities.

A total of 1.5 million learners will get a hot meal at school every day after the initiative was allocated R1.3bn. To transport, pupils who live more than 5km from their nearest school, an allocation of R1bn was set aside. This also include provision of specialised scholar transport to pupils with special educational needs.

In order to boost education MEC Panyaza Lesufi’s initiative of providing e-learning services at township schools, R815m was allocated for this. Lesufi’s department will also receive R1.4bn to employ more teachers in order to meet the growing number of pupils in the province.