SAFTU

22/10/2026

SAFTU demands that government:

* Increase municipal funding in real terms to match municipalities’ responsibilities, infrastructure needs and climate-related pressures.
* Protect and expand access to free basic water and electricity, with safeguards against unaffordable charges and disconnections.
* Fund the maintenance and repair of existing infrastructure, including wastewater treatment plants, water systems, roads and electricity networks.
* Build capable, accountable municipalities through properly staffed and skilled public services.
* Ensure smart meters support fair revenue collection and reliable services, rather than compelling poor households to pay for what they cannot afford.
* Reject the privatisation of essential municipal services and ensure public-private partnerships do not raise costs or weaken public accountability.
* Raise revenue through progressive taxation, including a wealth or solidarity tax, and confront illicit financial flows and corporate tax avoidance.

22/10/2026

Local government is still being starved of resources

The Minister describes local government receiving 10% of the Division of Revenue as a significant milestone. But a larger share of the total budget does not mean municipalities will have the resources they need. AIDC’s analysis shows that real spending to local government is projected to increase by just 1.1% over the medium term.

This is austerity at the point where people experience the state most directly. Municipalities face rising demands and the deepening effects of the climate crisis. Water shortages, sewage spills, failing wastewater treatment plants, deteriorating roads and unreliable electricity are already part of daily life for many communities. A headline allocation will not reverse this crisis if funding does not keep pace with the cost of maintaining infrastructure and providing basic services.

SAFTU is particularly concerned by the planned expansion of smart-meter programmes, including an additional R3.5 billion over the medium term. Meters may assist with managing infrastructure and billing, but they must not become a mechanism for forcing households that cannot afford to pay to disconnect themselves from electricity and water. These are essential services everyone needs to live with dignity.

The expansion of smart meters alongside greater reliance on public-private partnerships risks deepening the commercialisation and privatisation of municipal services. When government fails to provide sufficient funding, it shifts the costs onto poor households or opens the door to private control. That is the neoliberal response to municipal crisis; it does not solve the crisis.

22/10/2026

Austerity fuels division; cuts to Home Affairs worsen the problem

The MTBPS is completely inadequate in providing relief to the majority of people in South Africa. With unemployment, poverty and the cost of living already placing millions under severe pressure, this failure risks deepening the socio-economic crisis and fuelling greater divisions and tensions in society.

In this climate, xenophobic forces will seek to blame foreign nationals for hardships rooted in unemployment, inequality, poverty and the failure of the state to provide adequate services. SAFTU rejects that scapegoating. Migrants are not responsible for deindustrialisation, mass unemployment or the government’s economic choices.

At the same time, government proposes to cut the Home Affairs budget by 6.5% in real terms over the medium term. This further weakens the state’s capacity to manage immigration and border administration, enforce the law and hold employers accountable for exploiting undocumented workers. South Africa needs a capable, properly resourced Home Affairs department that can manage migration effectively and humanely. Cutting its real budget while social and economic pressures intensify is irresponsible.

SAFTU demands affordable food and transport, protection for grants and pensions, properly funded public services, and a wealth or solidarity tax to help meet people’s needs. Government must put people before profit.

The MTBPS also relies increasingly on public-private partnerships and private capital to deliver infrastructure and services. That is not a programme for transforming the economy or building public capacity. Public investment must serve communities, support industrial development and create decent jobs. Essential services must meet human need rather than guarantee private returns.

22/10/2026

The Minister is chasing lizards while the big crocodiles go untouched

The Minister highlights enforcement against illicit trade in alcohol and to***co. Tackling that trade matters, but the focus is strikingly narrow. The Minister is chasing lizards while leaving the big crocodiles untouched: illicit financial outflows, trade mispricing, tax-dodging schemes and the shifting of profits to avoid tax.

The MTBPS offers no serious redistribution strategy. There is no wealth tax or solidarity tax, and no increase in corporate taxes, even as social instability grows and the wealth gap remains entrenched. The government seeks more revenue from workers and consumers while avoiding the question of how the wealthiest individuals and corporations should contribute to meeting the country’s urgent needs.

SAFTU demands a progressive tax system that makes the wealthy and large corporations pay their fair share. Government must confront illicit financial flows and tax avoidance with the same urgency it claims to bring to other forms of illicit trade. Public resources must be raised from those with the greatest ability to pay and directed towards jobs, services and social protection.

22/10/2026

Austerity means less public spending per person

The public spending squeeze is already clear. In 2024/25 rand values, real public spending per person is projected to fall from R34,607 in 2019/20 to R26,496 in 2026/27—a decline of about 23%. By 2022/23, real spending per person had already fallen back to its 2008/09 level. This is what austerity means in practice: fewer resources per person for the services and support communities rely on.

The hardship is stark. Expanded unemployment, measured by Stats SA’s LU4 measure, stands at 46.3%. Nearly 66.7% of people lived below the upper-bound poverty line in 2023; that poverty line is R2,962 per person per month in 2026. A nutritious food basket costs R6,459.83, while food for one child costs R970.27 a month—far above the R580 Child Support Grant. Workers, pensioners and unemployed families are forced to choose between food, transport and basic services.

22/10/2026

AUDIO] SAFTU Spokesperson Newton Masuku's reaction to the MTBPS tabled by Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana.

22/10/2026

SAFTU rejects neoliberalism and austerity: a budget that deepens the crisis

The Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) continues to impose neoliberalism and austerity on a society already being torn apart by unemployment, poverty and inequality. These policies reinforce the same economic structure that has driven deindustrialisation, a bloodbath of job losses and persistently low growth. They shrink the public resources needed to meet social needs, while leaving the concentration of wealth and economic power largely untouched.

22/10/2026

AUIDIO] SAFTU Spokesperson Newton Masuku says Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana's MTBPS tabled on 21 October fails to address the plight of workers and the poor.
Masuku was speaking during an interview with the SABC's Thobela FM.

21/10/2026

WATCH] SAFTU and COSATU unite with working-class communities to reject neoliberalism and austerity.

21/10/2026

https://youtube.com/watch?v=9c_m0QvVO1w&si=EF-kScRb6VfurdRU

Video: eNCA