Nursing union and opposition parties slam Gauteng budget

Despite the R886.6m increase to Gauteng’s 2025/26 provincial budget, a nurses’ union and opposition parties have warned that the province remains under-resourced and understaffed.

This is as finance MEC Lebogang Maile re-tabled the R172.3bn provincial budget on Tuesday with an increase of R886m, which he said was made possible through the overcollection of revenue and a portion of unspent funds that were prevented from being forfeited to the National Treasury.

“In the previous budget, we had tabled R171.81bn and this means that there’s an increase of R886.6m. This is additional resources made possible through unspent funds, but also because we have over collected in the previous financial year,” Maile said.

While some departments, such as human settlements and economic development, got additional funds for the R886m added to the budget, others, such as health and education, did not get increases.

As a result, the Democratic Nursing Organisation of SA (Denosa) decried that health was allocated R67.1bn and therefore did not benefit from the R886.6m increase like some other departments.

Bongani Mazibuko, Denosa’s Gauteng secretary, said there was a severe underfunding of critical health posts.

“In Chris Hani Baragwanath [Academic Hospital], you’ve got 76 wards sometimes with 70 patients each, and at night you have one professional nurse, two enrolled nurses and three enrolled nursing assistants.

“This is not adequate. If you want to offer 24-hour services, you must hire enough staff. Without bodies on the ground, it is bound to fail,” he said.

Mazibuko said there have been delays in finalising the health department’s organigram and staff complement.

“The system is already stretched beyond capacity. In critical care units like the ICU, the standard is one nurse per critically ill patient or one nurse to two stable patients. However, in reality, they see extreme understaffing,” he said.

EFF Gauteng chairperson Nkululeko Dunga said “it also remains to be seen whether capital can reinvest in a government that has been identified as either engaging in corrupt activities or there is little confidence that they can spend the money that they are allocated”.

Dunga said it was possible that a third budget would be tabled.

“We do anticipate that there will be a third retake of the budget based on the position of the EFF at a national level. With the shortfall that is going to be sustained from the removal of the fuel levy, we are pretty much confident that there would have to be another adjustment on this current budget, and it speaks to the effect of what is going to happen at this level,” he said.

During a media briefing on the state of Gauteng’s finances last month, the provincial treasury revealed that the province had failed to spend R1.8bn of its allocated funds, with the bulk of that, R1.041bn, coming from the health and education departments. 

Speaking to Sowetan after Maile’s speech, the DA’s Gauteng finance shadow MEC, Ruhan Robinson, said: “Rollovers in key areas, such as social development, address socioeconomic issues within the province that are not at acceptable levels. Therefore, simply reallocating money in the next financial year is not sufficient when it is not directed to where it is most needed.”

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