The department of agriculture, land reform and rural development has had over R2bn cut from its budget due to the Covid-19 pandemic, minister Thoko Didiza said on Tuesday.
“The biggest portion of the cuts of R1.89bn within the department affected the programmes that deliver on food security, land redistribution and restitution,” said Didiza.
She told parliament that her department was initially in February given a budget of R16.8bn, but this was later cut to R14.4bn during the supplementary budget on June 24, 2020 - a reduction of R2.4bn. “The food security programme in our budget comprises the transfer allocation from the national budget as covered by the division of revenue. That would be the Ilima/Letsema and the Comprehensive Agricultural Support Programme,” said Didiza.
She said the rural development budget has also been cut by R199m, which would negatively affect rural social infrastructure.
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