A Budget Speech in Desperate Times – Joshua Mambendu’s Perspective
When the Minister of Finance took the podium to deliver his budget speech on Wednesday, March 12, he addressed a nation of desperate people, said Joshua Mambendu, an activist from Khutsong, Merafong.
“The majority of our people are impoverished and exploited,” Mambendu stated.
“The rates of unemployment, inequality, and violence in our country are among the worst in the world.”
Furthermore, Mambendu said that even the middle classes were going without water these days, and roads, hospitals, schools, libraries, parks, and whole city centers were all falling apart before our eyes.
“Years of austerity, kleptocracy, mismanagement, and fraudulent activities have left the country broken,” he emphasized.
“In the shack settlements and townships, young people are wandering around with nothing to do. Many young people who have passed their matric despite the crisis in our schools are unable to further their studies.”
Mambendu noted that many of those who had been given places at universities and TVET colleges were struggling for accommodation. Many were still waiting for financial aid and SRD Grants, and many graduates remained unemployed, he added.
“Most have lost all hope in all political parties. There is no work, and depression and anxiety are rampant. Jobs are only for friends, families, and girlfriends,” he said.
Mambendu further stated, “People are increasingly numbing their pain with alcohol, heroin, and other drugs, and turning on each other. Youth are joining the gangs that prey on society.”
He expressed concern that poverty was being criminalized and the poor were being policed with increasing and sometimes militarized violence.
“Violence can never resolve a social crisis,” Mambendu asserted. “Building a decent and just society in which the lives and dignity of all people are valued is the only way to resolve the social crisis.”
With almost no economic growth year after year and relentless austerity, which Mambendu described as “just a polite way of describing brutal cuts to social spending,” people were in a frightening spiral of decline.
Mambendu raised specific concerns about the budget’s implications for healthcare. “Now that there is a real threat from Trump’s fascistic government against the longstanding American support for the healthcare system to provide care for people living with HIV and AIDS, there may soon be a massive hole in the healthcare budget.”
He emphasized that many people who were kept alive and healthy by ARVs were suffering from stress and despair as they faced the consequences of Trump’s actions to end aid to South Africa.
“A lot of people who are on this treatment will be going through depression,” said Mambendu.
In the budget speech, Minister Godongwana announced measures to address the funding gap in healthcare, particularly for HIV/AIDS treatment programs. The Minister allocated additional resources to ensure the sustainability of treatment and care programs for people living with HIV and AIDS, responding to concerns about potential international funding cuts.
Mambendu insisted that it was time for the super-rich to give up some of their privileges for those who went to sleep without food. “Taxing the rich for the benefit of the poor will be welcomed by working-class people,” he said.
At the same time, he emphasized that corruption needed to be decisively dealt with so that public wealth could be used for the public good.
“People need massive investment in schools, universities, hospitals, clinics, housing, and psychological and rehab services,” Mambendu stated. He added that people needed massive investment in building peace, safety, and in our cities.
The budget speech addressed some of these concerns with proposed increases in social spending, though critics noted these increases fell short of what was needed to address the scale of the crisis.
Furthermore, Mambendu said, “In the urgency of this desperate crisis, the SRD grant must begin to pave the way for a universal basic income grant, and land must be allocated for people to grow food and markets established for people to buy and sell food. These kinds of measures will begin to instill confidence and hope for the poor.”
The Minister’s speech included provisions for extending the SRD grant, though it stopped short of committing to a universal basic income grant as advocated by Mambendu and other activists.
Mambendu further stated, “More austerity can only lead to more suffering, more decay of our institutions and infrastructure, and more violence.”
He noted there had been alarming rumors that the health and education budgets would be cut and that VAT, “always an anti-poor tax,” would be increased.
The budget speech confirmed some of these fears, with modest adjustments to education funding that critics argued represented real-term cuts when accounting for inflation, though healthcare spending was protected in key areas such as HIV/AIDS treatment.
“Austerity and regressive taxes must be opposed,” Mambendu said. “Desperate times call for bold, creative, and decisive measures—measures in the interests of the people.”
