Civil society, labour call for more spending on services

Increasing social grants, stopping budget cuts and prioritising dysfunctional municipalities.  

These are just some of the expectations civil society organisations and labour unions have ahead of finance minister Enoch Godongwana's budget speech today.

The Black Sash, which advocates for social justice, said it expected Godongwana to allocate sufficient resources to fulfill government’s promises regarding social security.

“We urge the government to move beyond rhetoric and take meaningful steps toward implementing the basic income grant,” said spokesperson Oliver Meth.

“A concrete plan with clear funding strategies, implementation timelines, and long-term sustainability measures must be presented. The wellbeing of millions of those living in South Africa depends on decisive action, and we will continue to advocate for policies that prioritise economic justice and dignity for all.”

He said they expected the minister to increase all social grants in line with inflation and establish a permanent social relief of distress (SRD) grant.

“We call for the SRD grant to be made permanent and increase the amount to at least the lower bound food poverty line, providing consistent support to unemployed individuals aged 18 to 59 who currently lack any form of income assistance.”

Meth also said they wanted the minister to raise the child support grant to at least R760.

Executive director of the National Professional Teachers' Organisation of SA's Basil Manuel said they hope the minister would stop budget cuts.

“Any more cuts we are going to be in trouble. We are in serious trouble already. We want to see education getting more [money] so that we don't have to be cutting teachers and having classes of 90 pupils,” he said.

Manuel said that the minister should also add more money to assist the department of education in its implementation of the Basic Education Laws Amendment Act.

“The plan that the department of education devises must be backed up by money,” he said.

The Rural Health Advocacy Project has called on the government to change its approach to health spending following the US aid withdrawals.   

“The changes in the global political setting provides a chance for the country to rethink how it can buttress itself against future external risks. We need to improve the responsiveness of the state funded system,” executive director Russell Rensburg said. 

“But a R33bn bailout will be required from the National Treasury to alleviate the current pressure on the system and tackle debt in provinces. In addition, strengthened governance mechanisms need to be put in place to ensure that money is spent on the health priorities.”

For Cosatu, the budget should include urgent measures to stabilise the increasing numbers of dysfunctional municipalities.

The union's parliamentary coordinator Matthew Parks said the budget should provide frontline public services in particular education, law enforcement, health and home affairs the resources they require to fulfil their mandate.

In addition, there should be an acceleration of the rollout of the public infrastructure programme and tackle blockages to it, in particular criminality.

“The economy will grow if we fix the state, stimulate growth and slash unemployment. It will not grow by squeezing already badly under resourced public services further,” Parks said.

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