The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) presented its submission on the 2025/6 Budget’s Appropriation (allocations to national government) and Eskom Debt Relief Amendment Bills to Parliament’s Standing Committee: Appropriations.
The Federation welcomes the positive increase in funding for critical and economic infrastructure, with an additional R34 billion bringing total infrastructure investments over the next three years to a total of R1.03 trillion. This includes roads (R402bn), water (R156bn), plus investments in rail, ports, and four new hospitals in Limpopo and the Westen Cape and 13 000 university beds. The R12.7 billion investments in Metro Rail will be a boost to 10 million workers across the metros, providing them more affordable and faster transport to get to work.
Key to ensuring the successful rollout of the infrastructure programme is for law enforcement organs to ramp up the fight against corruption, vandalism, the construction mafia and cable theft syndicates. Parliament will need to hold a tight leash over departments and State-Owned Enterprises to make sure targets as well as preferential and local procurement commitments are met.
The Federation welcomes the additional funding to help rebuild frontline public services crippled by years of reckless neo-liberal austerity budget cuts, including R29 billion for education and R28.9 billion for health as well filling key frontline vacancies including 800 doctors, 4 000 police officers, nurses and teachers, plus rolling out of Grade R to 700 000 learners as per the Basic Education Laws Amendment Act. The over R2.1 billion allocated towards laying the foundations for the National Health Insurance is a welcome sign amidst the onslaught of attacks on government’s efforts to rollout universal access to public healthcare.
Whilst these are positive initial steps, they are far from enough to undo years of brutal budget cuts that have crippled public services. The additional posts whilst welcome, are far too little to reverse the drastic decline in the ratios of teachers to learners, nurses and doctors to patients, police officers to communities amongst others. Much more must be done to capacitate the state, in particular law enforcement.
COSATU commends government for moving away previous inexplicable cuts to the Presidential Employment Programme which has provided valuable experience to the unemployed with an R8.8 billion boost, including R3.7 billion for the Teaching Assistants, plus R22bn from the UIF for job creation. Whilst these are not enough for the 12 million unemployed, they are a welcome step forward.
We are pleased government heeded COSATU’s call for an additional R4bn to boost SARS’ efforts to tackle tax and customs evasion. This is critical to ensuring the state has the resources needed to rebuild frontline public services, stimulate economic growth, tackle unemployment and provide relief for the poor. Further support for SARS must be prioritised over the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework.
Issued by COSATU
Matthew Parks(COSATU Parliamentary Coordinator)
Mobile: 082 785 0687
Email: matthew@cosatu.org.za