Johannesburg - Government is pushing
ahead with a plan to offer free university education to students
from poor households and will announce funding details in next
month's budget, Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba said on Tuesday.
President Jacob Zuma said last month the government would
bankroll the tuition without giving details of how it would be
funded. The announcement rattled financial markets and critics
said it was a populist promise that risked widening an already
gaping budget deficit.
A government report and the treasury said the plan is
unaffordable. Some critics also said the timing of the
announcement, which came days before Zuma stepped down as leader
of the African National Congress, showed he no longer
cared about fiscal responsibility.
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Gigaba told reporters at a televised briefing in Pretoria that costs estimates had been finalized and the plan
would be implemented over eight years.
"The president found himself in an invidious position ....
It is about how to manage the process and implement it in a
sustainable manner without having to breach the fiscal
expenditure ceiling," he said."
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"If the president had not acted this year to provide some
funding it would have resulted in further protests," he said.
Since 2015 protests by students demanding free education
rocked campuses across the country, disrupting teaching and
examinations and culminating in a march to Zuma's offices in
Pretoria that saw the president freeze tuition increases.