Limpopo Finance MEC Thaba Mufamadi has announced a dramatic decrease in the provincial government's debt, and has predicted that the balance of R181 million will be repaid during the current financial year.

Mufamadi tabled a budget of R21,4 billion, with Education, Health and Welfare receiving the major allocations.

An interesting feature of the budget is the increase in the province's own revenue, due to better collection systems. However, this component (R330 million) remains a very small percentage of the total. Drivers' licence fees make up more than R100 million (32 percent) of this item of income.

Whereas Education will receive R8,5 billion, Welfare R4 billion, and Health R3,4 billion, only R2 billion is to be spent on infrastructure development. In his overview, Mufamadi pointed out that mining, tourism, the manufacturing industry and agriculture remained the largest contributors to the provincial economy.

The greatest challenge for the coming decade would be black empowerment in key economic sectors.

"Black economic empowerment is not an option, but an imperative. We shall increase efforts to implement black economic empowerment policies, and for this reason R900 million will be ploughed into black business", Mufamadi announced.

An amount of R52 million had been set aside to stabilise the prevalence of HIV/Aids. The R4,9 billion allocated to Welfare would enable the government to increase old age pensions, as well as child support and disability grants. This would play a major role in the fight against poverty in the province.