The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), alongside millions of workers, anxiously awaits the Minister for Finance, Mr. Enoch Godongwana’s tabling of the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) at Parliament.

It is no exaggeration to state that workers are under siege with unemployment rising to a dangerously high 43.8%, the economy continuing to limp along at anemic 1.2% growth, and working-class communities battered by poverty, inequality, crime and corruption.  2026 has been particularly painful due to the war in the Middle East which has sent oil prices soaring, hammering South Africa with over 25% petrol and 50% diesel price hikes. This has spiked inflation, triggered two repo rate hikes, and pushed workers deeper into poverty.

Key MTBPS interventions must include:

• Rebuilding the state, filling critical vacancies for doctors, nurses, teachers, police, Home Affairs officials and other essential workers; and investing in institutional capacity, including the NHI.
• Stabilising and fixing local government, the state’s weakest link, by removing corrupt and incompetent leadership, appointing skilled management, paying workers and service providers timeously, and putting in place a sustainable funding model. The R120 billion municipal debt to Eskom and R370 billion owed to municipalities must be dealt with.
• Ramping up the fight against crime; removing the cancer of corruption from law enforcement and recruiting detectives and other police officers, forensic investigators, prosecutors and magistrates, and providing SAPS with working vehicles, state of the art communications and forensic capacities. The NPA, Courts, SANDF, Hawks, Correctional Services and other law enforcement organs need urgent overhauling and resourcing.
• A bold stimulus package for jobs and growth, including tackling delays affecting the R1 trillion infrastructure investments, and providing massive public and private financing for SMMEs, industrial, export and jobs rich sectors.
• Strategic support for Eskom, Transnet, PRASA, the Post Office, Postbank, SABC and Denel to ensure they are restored to full capacity and in particular to make electricity affordable to unleash economic growth.
• Relief for workers through releasing R10 billion from the Central Energy Fund’s Equalisation Fund to reduce the suffocatingly high price of fuel, ramping up public employment and private sector artisanship programmes to provide hope for the 12 million unemployed, and expediting the next phase of the Two Pot Pension Reforms to unlock relief for millions of highly indebted workers.
• Funding for the 2026 State of the Nation Address’ bold commitment to appoint 10 000 permanent labour inspectors, a game changer for protecting millions of vulnerable workers, as well as interventions to overhaul and modernise the dysfunctional Unemployment Insurance and Compensation of Occupational Injuries and Diseases Funds, and the CCMA.
• Adjusting the SRD Grant for value lost to five years of no inflationary increases for its 8 million destitute recipients.
• Additional funding to enable SARS to boost tax compliance from 68% to 75% by 2029 and thus providing the state the resources required to fulfill its constitutional and developmental mandates.

This MTBPS cannot be business as usual, nor can we afford to continue to normalise the abnormal.  Government must signal a bold shift to stimulate growth, rebuild public and municipal services, provide relief to workers and the poor, and give hope to the nation.  It is time to end tried and failed neo-liberal austerity policies that have crippled growth.  We must now invest to grow the economy and tackle unemployment.  It is time for bold action.

Issued by COSATU

Matthew Parks (COSATU Parliamentary Coordinator)

Mobile: 082 785 0687

Email: matthew@cosatu.org.za