MARGEAUX ERASMUS
A member of Student Parliament called for the SRC budget to be open for debate before it would have been finalised by the Student Parliament on 24 April.
Petra Bouwer, an independent Student Parliament representative, called for the budget to be transparent “to further ensure a culture of transparency within the SRC and the Student Parliament.”
Bouwer added that making the SRC budget open for discussion would “ensure that all the aspects and elements represented by the members of parliament and their faculties [would] receive adequate funding through a process of consensual prioritisation.”
The Treasurer of the Student Representative Council (SRC) Tebogo Twala explained that the SRC budget has not been finalised yet. She explained that each SRC member has been mandated by Student Parliament to address certain issues that students have.
“This mandate was then used to establish the portfolios the current SRC members have. It is then the duty of those SRC members in specific portfolios to make that mandate a reality. [Then] the SRC member draws a Plan of Action (POA), and gives [Student Parliament] feedback of how far the plan is with regards to implementation.”
Twala added that the allocation of funds to portfolios depends solely on each SRC member’s POA but because some POA’s have not been finalised, fund allocation has not been either.
“The budget is used as a planning tool for SRC portfolios to use only the funds allocated to them for specific projects included in the POA to fulfil the mandate given by parliament,” Twala said.
According to Bouwer, the outcome of his suggestion was that the SRC will discuss and draw up the budget, which will then be presented to Student Parliament to inform them of the distribution of funds accompanied by a motivation for the specific distribution.
Twala said that, “No money goes out without the approval of the Director of Student Affairs,” and added that, “the UP financial system being used limits any ‘funny money’ business from happening.”
