Media Advisory: SAHRC Free State Provincial to conduct stakeholder engagement on pro-human rights budgeting

22 February 2023

Attention: Editors and Reporters

Government must respect, protect, and promote human rights. It must play a vital role in determining how to allocate and spend fiscus. If government has to deliver specific services, then this must clearly be reflected in the budget. The work on human rights budgeting also allows us to ask who participates in budgeting and how different social groups are affected. This means that priority must be given to critical areas such as education, social security, access to healthcare, housing, and employment. It also means focusing not only on who has access to goods and services, but also on continually improving the quality, availability, and affordability of those goods and services.

It is a Constitutional obligation that binds all levels of government and if government is not alive to this, budgeting will continue to perpetuate structural inequalities between the privileged and less privileged and overlook opportunities to use public funds to improve the lives of disadvantaged and marginalised peoples.

With regard to the aforementioned, the SAHRC in Free State province will be having a stakeholder engagement on the understanding of how critical human rights budgeting is to municipalities. Proper human rights budgeting mechanisms will assist public servants with higher levels of public service involvement to be more self-regulating and resistant to material temptations.

The stakeholder engagement is scheduled as follows:

Date: 22 February 2023

Time: 10H00

Venue: Clarens Community Hall

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For further information contact SAHRC FS Provincial Manager, Mr. Thabang Kheswa on Tel: 051 447 1170, Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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The Human Rights Commission is the national institution established to support constitutional democracy. It is committed to promote respect for, observance of and protection of human rights for everyone without fear or favour.

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