Afrika Mayibuye Movement rejects the 2026 Budget as presented by the Minister of Finance on 25 February 2026. We reject in totality the introduction of the 2026 Division of Revenue Bill, the 2026 Appropriation Bill and the 2025/26 Special Appropriation Bill, together with the tabling of the 2026 Estimates of National Expenditure and the 2026 Budget Review. These collectively are a continuation of the failed fiscal framework and neoliberal policies and agenda of the South African government which has kept our country underdeveloped.
Mayibuye is aware that the fiscal framework and neoliberal agenda that the National Treasury is currently pursuing and insisting on is responsible for the following. On joblessness, the budget entrenches mass unemployment by projecting only 1.6 percent real GDP growth in 2026 and an average of 1.8 percent over the medium term.
This is far below the 3 percent or more required to absorb new entrants into the labour market. With more than 12 million South Africans unemployed and youth unemployment exceeding 60 percent in many communities, the document offers no decisive public employment programme or state-led industrial strategy. Instead it relies on vague hopes in private-sector responses and incremental reforms, leaving millions without dignity or
income and condemning generations to structural exclusion.
On the lack of industrial expansion and development, the budget fails to reverse decades of
deindustrialisation and commodity dependence. Manufacturing’s contribution to the economy
remains stagnant while the country continues to export raw minerals and import finished goods. The modest infrastructure announcements and limited support for localisation cannot overcome the 2 absence of a bold developmental state that actively builds domestic factories, protects strategic sectors and drives value addition. This neoliberal restraint perpetuates jobless growth and leaves our economy vulnerable to global price shocks, denying millions the opportunity to participate in productive, value-creating industries.
On poverty, the budget offers only cosmetic relief while the structural drivers of hunger and
deprivation deepen. Modest grant increases of R80 for old-age and disability pensions and R20 for child support cannot keep pace with the rising cost of living or reverse the reality that 17.8 million South Africans do not have enough to eat. Debt-service costs of R420.6 billion annually continue to crowd out resources that should fund expanded social protection, nutrition programmes and basic services. By prioritising fiscal consolidation over people-centred spending, the framework reproduces poverty and widens the gap between a tiny elite and the suffering majority.
On spatial inequalities that still reflect apartheid, the budget does nothing to dismantle the colonial geography of exclusion. Townships and rural areas remain cut off from economic centres, with land ownership patterns largely unchanged since 1994. Without accelerated restitution and redistribution, infrastructure investment remains skewed towards already privileged urban nodes. The result is persistent apartheid spatial planning that condemns the majority to long commutes, inferior services and limited economic opportunity, locking in intergenerational disadvantage and undermining national cohesion.
We are aware that the budget as proposed and tabled will not resolve these multiple crises. If
anything they will get worse. The low growth trajectory, combined with constrained public spending and reliance on market forces, guarantees continued deterioration in employment, industrial capacity, poverty levels and spatial divides.
Mayibuye is deeply concerned about the funding of local government, which continues to receive the smallest share of government funding despite being the coalface of service delivery demands and expectations. In the 2026 Division of Revenue framework, the local government equitable share has been reduced to approximately 9.4 percent of nationally raised revenue. This is wholly inadequate for a sphere responsible for water, sanitation, electricity reticulation, roads, refuse removal and local economic development.
Sixty-three percent (63%) of municipalities are in financial distress, with chronic underfunding fuelling maintenance backlogs, service failures and governance collapse. Communities endure daily water cuts, sewage spills, potholed roads and electricity outages while municipalities divert funds and fail to collect revenue or pay bulk suppliers. This under-resourcing perpetuates a vicious cycle 3 of protests, investor flight and deepened poverty, exposing the hypocrisy of a national framework that speaks of developmental local government while starving it of resources. Without a dramatic increase in direct equitable share allocations, ring-fenced infrastructure grants and stringent accountability mechanisms, service delivery will continue to crumble at the point where ordinary citizens feel government most acutely.
Mayibuye is concerned about South Africa’s debt obligations and situation. As things stand, South Africa owes R6.12 trillion, and expends R420.6 billion annually as debt service costs, which makes it R35.05 billion per month. This massive outflow crowds out investment in productive capacity, land reform, industrialisation and social infrastructure at the very moment when bold public spending is required to break the cycle of dependency.
Despite available and clear evidence of tax base erosion, transfer pricing and profit shifting, the National Treasury and the South African Revenue Services continue to bury their heads in the sand. There is still no comprehensive plan and legislative framework to address tax base erosion, transfer pricing and profit shifting.
Instead of chasing wild geese, it is long overdue for South Africa to establish a technically sound and skilled commission of inquiry into tax base erosion, transfer pricing and profit shifting and this will reveal the trillions of Rands stolen by multinational corporations operating as legitimate businesses in South Africa.
The budget’s other developmental weaknesses are equally glaring. It entrenches a narrow tax base that places disproportionate burden on a small number of formal workers while leaving untapped potential in broader wealth redistribution. It offers no decisive intervention to reverse apartheid-era spatial planning or to prioritise black industrial ownership. Public spending on health, education and skills development remains constrained, risking further deterioration in human capital formation.
Infrastructure projects remain vulnerable to implementation delays and governance failures, while the reliance on private-sector responses and incremental reforms ignores the urgent need for stateled transformation. In short, the document represents continuity rather than rupture with the policies that have reproduced inequality, poverty and joblessness for decades. As we proposed in our 2026 State of the Nation Address statement, the way forward demands bold, transformative action rooted in justice and self-determination.
- Resolve the land ownership problem through accelerated, genuine redistribution that places land in the hands of those dispossessed, ending the colonial legacy once and for all by implementing 4 comprehensive land reform policies that prioritise restitution, equitable access, and the empowerment of youth and women as key beneficiaries to foster intergenerational and genderinclusive ownership.
- Provide huge agricultural support to black farmers at all levels, particularly medium and smallscale, equipping them with resources, training, finance, and infrastructure, and plugging them into
export markets to build sustainable livelihoods and food sovereignty that empowers local communities, with targeted prioritisation for black women and youth farmers to address their historical exclusion. - Optimise the African Continental Free Trade Area to build a robust local economy and manufacturing base, including cars and essential goods, fostering intra-African trade that prioritises domestic industrialisation over raw export dependency and creates regional value chains.
- Optimise China’s market access to drive domestic industrialisation, leveraging strategicpartnerships for technology transfer, investment in factories, and value-added production that creates jobs and skills locally while enhancing bilateral economic ties.
- Reconfigure education to produce skills at secondary levels through vocational training,
technical streams, and practical curricula, not just at post-secondary institutions, ensuring the youth
are work-ready and innovative from an earlier age to bridge the skills gap, with a focus on
empowering young women and youth overall for meaningful job participation. - Reconfigure the local state to be more developmental, with capable, accountable
municipalities focused on service delivery, infrastructure investment, and economic empowerment
rather than patronage and inefficiency, through strengthened governance and capacity building. - Include Traditional Leadership in the allocation of resources to address rural poverty by
integrating them into governance structures, ensuring their active participation in development
planning, resource distribution, and decision-making processes to empower rural communities,
bridge the urban-rural divide, and foster inclusive growth that respects customary systems. - Systematically and systemically provide jobs and economic opportunities to South Africans
and improve public infrastructure on a sustainable basis.
Afrika Mayibuye Movement calls on all progressive forces, civil society organisations, labour
movements and the broader public to reject this budget and mobilise for a genuine people-centred
alternative. Only through fundamental economic reconfiguration that places land, resources and
production in the hands of the dispossessed can we achieve true liberation and shared prosperity.
Afrika Mayibuye! The time for half-measures is over. The time for decisive, sovereign action is now.
By Sydney Baloyi Contact, National Spokespersons: 063 208 6261
