The provincial budget, being tabled tomorrow, must rise to the challenge of our province’s stagnating economy, decaying infrastructure, and rising cost of living. We need jobs driven by a growth-focused budget that targets value for money, not contracts for cadres.
We need a departure from the National Budget tabled earlier this month, which failed to address South Africa’s deep economic challenges. It continues a path of excessive spending, rising debt, and policies that do nothing to stimulate job creation or attract investment. The Eastern Cape cannot afford to follow that same path.
The province is expected to receive R82.45 billion in equitable share funding for the 2025/2026 financial year, an increase of just 5.58%, but much of this will likely be consumed by ballooning Cost of Employment (CoE) pressures.
Runaway salary bills are already choking service delivery. Teachers and public servants deserve fair pay, but this cannot come at the cost of collapsing public services.
Finance MEC Mlungisi Mvoko must take a firm stance on cost containment and cut back non-core expenditure. The DA has long warned that unless the province enforces real spending discipline, we will continue to spiral into deeper financial distress while communities are left without basic services.
We will be closely watching the amount allocated to roads in particular as well as expenditure on economic growth in general.
The latest statistics show that crime is out of control, yet the Department of Community Safety receives just 0.15% of the total provincial budget. The 2024/25 budget allocated just R144.8 million to the department, compared to the Western Cape’s R763.4 million. MEC Mvoko must prioritise public safety by increasing funding to this crucial department.
The continued existence of failing provincial state-owned entities is a drain on public finances. These entities add little to no value, act as inefficient implementing agents, and inflate costs. Instead of addressing service delivery bottlenecks, they serve as vehicles for patronage and political deployment.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) is reiterating our call for the rationalisation of these entities. Every rand wasted on bloated SOEs is a rand not spent on fixing roads, building schools, or delivering water to our people.
Own revenue generation remains dismal. Key departments like Health and Public Works are failing to meet their own revenue targets. Public Works doesn’t even have an up-to-date asset register. Government properties are left vacant, vandalised, and mismanaged, wasting immense economic potential.
This is unacceptable at a time when the provincial government should be leveraging every available asset to ease the burden on residents and bolster the fiscus. MEC Mvoko must table a credible plan to turn this around.
The DA is calling on MEC Mvoko to present a budget that focuses on growing the economy, incentivising investment, and supporting job creation. We cannot continue relying on dwindling national transfers while offering no real plan to build a self-sustaining provincial economy.
It is time for a budget that takes the people of the Eastern Cape seriously, a budget that prioritises jobs, growth, financial responsibility, and quality service delivery. The DA will continue to fight for the people of this province to receive the services and opportunities they deserve.