KwaZulu-Natal’s provincial budget is set to top R115-billion in the coming financial year – a R5-billion rand increase over the current year.

This emerged on Thursday when KwaZulu-Natal finance MEC Belinda Scott presented the provincial budget to the KwaZulu-Natal legislature in Pietermaritzburg.

Education and Health take the lion’s share of the budget with R47.4-billion allocated to education and R39.5-billion allocated to health — a combined 75.5 percent of the total budget in the 2017/18 financial year.

About R73-billion of the total provincial budget will be spent on wages and salaries.

Scott said that R252.3-million had been budgeted for traditional leaders – or Izinduna as they are known.

This though is separate from the R58.9 million that has been allocated to the Zulu Royal Household headed up by King Goodwill Zwelithini.

The provincial Department of Transport is the third biggest recipient of funding, taking up R9.847-billion with most of that to be spent on building roads.

Scott said that the provincial government would be following National Treasury guidelines to ensure that procurement is targeted to empower various groups, including African women among others.

“We are not talking this over. We are walking the talk,” she said.