People Against Budget Cuts march to parliament to demand a pro-poor budget

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the Budget Justice Coalition say the budget as a whole fails to respond to the crisis facing poor people. The organisations were responding to the budget speech that was delivered by Minister of Finance, Enoch Godongwana on Wednesday afternoon. In a press statement, the trade union federation described the 2026/27 Budget and Medium-Term Expenditure Framework as lackluster.

“Whilst appreciating that there are some progressive and important allocations that Cosatu campaigned for included in the budget, as an overall package it fails to respond decisively to the fundamental crises facing the working class and the economy, in particular a 41.1% unemployment rate, economic growth far below the 3% needed to create jobs, struggling public and municipal services and state-owned enterprises, entrenched levels of poverty and inequality, and endemic crime and corruption. Tragically the budget is focused on balancing the books, not at aggressively kickstarting economic growth or tackling unemployment,” said the union federation.

In an interview with Elitsha, Dan Peter Al-Naddaf, a member of the steering committee of the Budget Justice Coalition, said that the treasury continues to use its revenue conservatively. “Overall, this is a budget speech where we saw the minister announcing massive increases in savings in revenue from several sources, some of which are debatable. It didn’t rise to the occasion by using those savings and revenue to assist and invest in the people who need it the most, particularly the most vulnerable.

“Our view on the measures that the treasury uses to deal with fiscal constraints demonstrates that it knows it has a wide range of different avenues available for more progressive revenue-raising mechanisms. But, it continues to insist on using less progressive revenue-raising mechanisms. We don’t know why treasury is refusing to properly engage with several types of enhanced wealth taxes which are available, why it has refused to engage with the ability to make use of things like the gold and foreign exchange contingency reserve account more effectively for social spending,” he said.

Earlier today and ahead of the budget speech, hundreds of activists marched to parliament demanding a pro-poor budget. The People Against Budget Cuts – a coalition of civil society organisations, trade unions, social movements, and community groups – held a speak-out on the negative impact of the budget cuts on their lives and communities.

Moegsien Ismail from Back2Work Campaign decried how the City of Cape Town continues to exploit workers under the Expanded Public Works Programme with no intervention from the national government.

“EPWP was introduced as the PWP, then a few years later, expanded it. The only thing it expanded was the misery of the poor and unemployed on the Cape Flats. It is doing nothing that is outlined in its objectives. No training, no alleviation of unemployment, in fact, it worsened unemployment. The City of Cape Town is reducing its permanent staff, and use three to four EPWP workers to do the work of one council employee, at a fraction of the cost. Over the years it cut up to 15,000 permanent posts and replaced it with 400,000 job opportunities – low-paid, short-term contracts of three months. EPWP workers are performing core council functions. Everyday I see them cleaning and sweeping the streets in the commercial section of my community. That’s permanent posts. Not meant for EPWP,” he said.

Al Naddaf said that they are deeply concerned about the significant cuts to the EPWP as well as the Presidential Employment Stimulus. “Again, this is in stark contrast to the language which the president used in his state of the nation address, where he made it clear that these are incredibly useful avenues,” he said.

Phelisa Dlangamandla from Movement for Change and Social Justice said that budget cuts have impacted on the provision of healthcare services in Gugulethu. “The clinic and day hospital is not adequately resourced and have staff capacity problems. The population of Gugulethu has grown over the years but the number of nurses and doctors has remained the same. Patients end up blaming and fighting with the healthcare workers when it is not their fault that we stand in long queues,” she said.

Speaking to Elitsha, Moipone Jwayi from the Rural Women Assembly said they expect the budget to ensure that small-scale farmers thrive and are supported by the government. “Small-scale farmers are the ones who produce food for food security, and as we supply local markets. Most of us are women and we also need land to farm so the budget should speak to that,” she said.

Outside parliament, they handed a memorandum to the treasury demanding an end to austerity measures and the systematic under-funding of public services. Mahlubandile Khuhlane from The Cry of the Xcluded told the protesters not to scapegoat foreign nationals and to unite in the fight against “the attacks by the ANC and DA-led government”.

“We need to go back to our communities and tell them that our suffering is not because of the Zimbabweans, Malawians or Angolans because that is the message that is being spread in our communities by vigilante groups like Operation Dudula and March on March. Our suffering has been there long before our sisters and brothers from Malawi, Zimbabwe and Angola came to this country. Our suffering has been caused by the government we elected in 1994 and that is the truth and we should tell our families and communities the truth. Our brothers from other parts of the continent did not adopt the economic policies that are making our lives difficult,” he said

Motlatsi Tsubane from Cosatu said that the budget cuts have resulted in the “freezing of posts, wage suppression and shrinking budgets that undermine service delivery”.

“The morale is low in the public sector, efficiency has declined and vacancies remained unfilled whilst pressure has been intensified on workers,” Tsubane said.

“We have been here before and were never listened to. From now on, we need to intensify the spirit of our fight. If we continue to be peaceful, no-one will listen to us. We need to go back to our communities with the message that we need to fight neo-liberalism,” said Khuhlane.