The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) presented its submission on the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement’s Division of Revenue Amendment (DORA) and Adjustments Appropriation Bills allocating additional funding to provincial and local government and national departments to Parliament’s Select Committee: Appropriations.

COSATU remains deeply concerned with government’s overall neo-liberal approach to the Budget.  Workers have borne the brunt of austerity cuts to frontline public services that the working class and economy depend upon.  We are extremely distressed by the state of local government where mismanagement, corruption, underfunding and failures to collect rates have seen workers unpaid and basic services deteriorate. 

Whilst we do not believe that the DORA and the Adjustments Appropriation Bills go far enough to ensure that public services are sufficiently resourced or that local government is set on the path to recovery, there are positive supplementary allocations allocated by the African National Congress led government that COSATU welcomes, in particular:

• R2.7 billion to commence the roll out of Early Childhood Development at public schools and R454 million to repair schools damaged by natural disasters in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.
• R2.06 billion to boost municipal electricity and water services in the metros and R1.9 billion to repair municipal infrastructure damaged by natural disasters in the Eastern Cape.
• R150 million for road repairs in the Eastern Cape and R303 million for public transport eThekwini.
• R856 million for the National Health Insurance Indirect Grant and revitalising health facilities as well as for building hospitals and clinics in the Western Cape, Free State and Limpopo.
• R450 million to expand Public Employment Stimulus programmes in the metros.
• R2.1 billion additional funding for the SRD Grant.
• R2.8 billion to reinforce Home Affairs’ capacity and civic services.
• R991 for communications infrastructure investments.
• R824 million for upgrading informal settlements.
• R1.2 billion to support emerging farmers and land reform.
• R1.8 billion to boost the deployment of the South African National Defence Force and Landward Defence.
• R600 million to ease the courts’ backlogs and R556 million to boost the South African Police Service.

Whilst welcoming these progressive allocations to invest in public and municipal services and provide relief for the poor, we are deeply concerned by several glairing setbacks in the MTBPS and the Bills, in particular:

• Not adjusting the SRD Grant for inflationary erosion and setting a path to raise it to the Food Poverty Line over the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework.
• R40 million cuts to the Department of Employment and Labour’s inspectorate whilst millions of workers’ rights are routinely violated and no additional funding for the CCMA despite the flood of cases facing it.
• No additional allocations to the Departments of Electricity and Energy plus Trade, Industry and Competition to cushion distressed companies facing increasingly unaffordable electricity and the imposition of 30% tariffs on South African exports to the United States.
• R4 billion cuts in road infrastructure and maintenance, including through SANRAL.

The increasing number of dysfunctional municipalities is extremely alarming.  Whilst appreciating initial interventions to stabilise these municipalities, they are not enough given the extent of the crises facing workers and communities.  More must be done to turn local government around, in particular to ensure municipal staff are paid, debt is collected, basic services are restored and infrastructure maintained.

COSATU will continue to engage government on a much bolder, more aggressive set of interventions to be included in the 2026/27 Budget to rebuild public and municipal services, stimulate inclusive economic growth, slash unemployment, and tackle poverty, inequality, crime and corruption.  Investments in public and municipal services must be viewed as a necessary investment in economic growth and decent work.

Issued by COSATU

Matthew Parks (COSATU Parliamentary Coordinator)

Mobile: 082 785 0687

Email: matthew@cosatu.org.za