As Minister of Finance Enoch Godongwana prepares to table the 2026 National Budget on 25 February, the Budget Justice Coalition warns that the government’s celebration of fiscal “stability” must not come at the cost of South Africa’s most vulnerable citizens.
The Budget Justice Coalition remains deeply concerned that macroeconomic reforms have failed to translate into a meaningful outcomes for South African communities. While the Treasury prioritises debt-servicing and investor confidence, the lived reality of millions remains a crisis of hunger, unemployment, and collapsing public services with two-thirds of the population living below the Upper-Bound Poverty Line.
The human cost of “targeted savings”
A central concern for the Budget Justice Coalition is the introduction of the Targeted and Responsible Savings (TARS) initiative. This concept was introduced in the 2025 MTEF guidelines and implemented before the MTBPS, without consultation or clarity about how it would be managed. Some members anticipated the outcomes, while others believed that the decisions would follow robust analysis and impact assessments, and that the rationale for decisions would be clearly communicated. What we have seen is the targeting of social grants to identify savings, often at the expense of eligible recipients, vulnerable citizens, who are forced to meet increasingly exclusionary barriers while SASSA officials and government employees, who account for the majority of serious fraud cases in the system, face no consequences.
The Coalition is not opposed to efficiency-enhancing interventions in the face of fiscal constraints. Our members have supported the efforts to identify ghost workers and redirect savings to frontline appointments, and procurement reform aimed at reducing inefficiency and criminality in the procurement system. “Efficiency should never be a euphemism for the erosion of social protection. We are calling for greater transparency around TARS decisions and implementation to ensure that’rationalisation’ doesn’t lead to further exclusion of the poor from essential services.”
Urgent Demands for Social Justice
The Budget Justice Coalition and its members highlight several critical areas where the 2026 Budget must pivot:
#1 Child Support Grant (CSG) & Nutrition: The BJC notes that the CSG remains woefully inadequate. With the Food Poverty Line standing at approximately R855, the current grant (roughly R560) is far short of the R953+ needed to provide a child with basic nutrition. We demand the CSG be aligned with the Food Poverty Line immediately to stop child malnutrition deaths.
#2 Youth Unemployment: Despite a “war room” for the National Student Financial Aid Scheme and talk of R1 trillion in infrastructure spending, the youth of South Africa are not seeing a clear path to economic inclusion. We call for a turnaround plan for youth employment similar in scale to the intervention in SOEs. At the same time, the future of the Presidential Employment Stimulus is highly uncertain; while it has created over 2.5 million short-term opportunities since its inception in 2020 with unprecedented scale, yearly funding affects its impact. The PES should be expanded to provide stable opportunities, in a country that is failing to providing work opportunities but where the needs are great
#3 The Water and Health Crisis: The budget allocates a package of basic services to 11,2 million households, but only 2,8 million households access indigent support. Infrastructure investment must prioritize social infrastructure – classrooms, clinics, water pipes, and indigent support -not just network industries for big business.
#4 Education: Â the BJC remains concerned about exclusion and funding gaps for higher education. Government must not become complacent following improved matric results. Severe and significant gaps remain across ECD, basic education and higher education
#5 Tax Justice: In the most unequal country in the world, more should be done to enhance public spending to meet people’s needs. This is possible by maximising the progressivity of the tax system. In addition, we call for the zero-rating of all 44 basic food items and the strengthening of the Health Promotion Levy (sugar tax) to fund social protection and health.
#6 Capable state: departments must ensure that skilled and professional project managers, researchers and engineers are employed to improve efficiency of public spending, reduce delays in infrastructure delivery and strengthen oversight.
#7 Corruption, accountability and whistleblower protection: the BJC has welcomed progress in procurement reforms and data transparency but government must do more to ensure that departments are accountable to the people they serve and whistleblowers are protected from harassment, violence and exclusion.
Will the budget deliver on SONAs promises?
While the President acknowledged many of the social and economic challenges our members have consistently raised in the State of the Nation Address (SONA), the Coalition remains concerned about how and when these commitments will translate into concrete, adequately funded interventions in the Budget. 3 Several of the announced reforms will only be operationalised in the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement later this year, and some funding commitments are spread over the next three years. This raises serious questions about what will receive immediate attention in communities facing urgent hardship. We have seen task teams and commissions diagnose deep structural problems before. What has been missing is implementation, accountability and measurable change.
Communities cannot survive on plans alone. Technical fiscal reforms, whether through TARS, fiscal anchors, or macro-fiscal adjustments such as a lower inflation target, will not, on their own, rebuild trust or restore dignity for households struggling to survive. What is required is a decisive shift in priorities: sustained investment in health and education to support capable and empowered citizens; large-scale investment in water and basic infrastructure, coupled with reforms to strengthen project delivery and oversight; expanded and stable public employment; and a clear, long-term pathway toward comprehensive income support. With a modest improvement in the economic outlook, this Budget presents an opportunity to move beyond consolidation and signal a genuine shift toward recovery and inclusive growth. South Africans need urgent, tangible change, not deferred commitments. Following the tabling of the budget, the Budget Justice Coalition is hosting a Space at 6pm – the Coalition will also submit detailed responses to the Finance and Appropriation Committees to ensure that the voices of the people are heard in the halls of Parliament.
For interview, contact Clotilde on 0826815927
About the Budget Justice Coalition: The BJC is a collaborative of over 20 civil society organisations, dedicated to ensuring that the South African budget advances social, economic, and environmental justice.