MTBPS 2026: GBV and early childhood development get prioritised in mini budget of maximum efficiency

It’s a cough-and-you-miss-it moment in the Medium Term Budget Policy Statement (mini budget, to the rest of us), but if you flip to Chapter 4 – Expenditure Priorities – page 33, there’s a welcome commitment to the women, girls and children of South Africa.

“These savings will be reprioritised to prevent gender-based violence and femicide and to support priority health-sector interventions to combat child malnutrition and stunting.”

The savings referred to come from better verification measures for social grant beneficiaries – which Treasury is projecting to shave 700,000 fraudulent recipients off of the welfare scheme by the 2029/2030 fiscus. Which should return R6.2-billion, which will be reprioritised to fight GBV, femicide and child malnutrition.

The government is spending about R95-billion on improving and digitising general public services annually over the same period, which returns just over 1% on the capital spend.

Ulrike Britton, head of public finance in National Treasury, explained that much of this relief is coming from the social relief grant savings where the government is investing in “improving administration, technology, and data exchange”.

Not DOGE-ing the question

We will not call this focus on redirecting funds recovered through greater efficiencies an Elon Musk-style blunt audit, but it does seem to echo the sentiment at least.

The Social Relief of Distress grant will be extended for another year while work continues on integration with labour market activation, skills development and enterprise support interventions.

In the future there will be a policy change where SRD beneficiaries will be linked to employment, training and business opportunities through the MzansiXchange – as well as a broader rethink.

Wait, what’s an MzansiXchange?

To quote director-general Duncan Pieterse, “It’s a project we are piloting this year that allows government departments to exchange data.”

“The work on the MzanziXchange itself is being led by the Treasury, because for us, it links back into this integrity of our physical account,” the DG told Daily Maverick.

The MyMzansi app and the broader suite of digital public infrastructure is being done inside the interdepartmental working group on digitalisation that unites the common interests of the relevant DGs in the Presidency, Treasury and the Department of Communications and Digital technologies.

“We can gain a lot in terms of our internal efficiencies by using the data that we have to improve verification across the ecosystem. So it’s something that will keep coming back to.”

And it’s all built on the cornerstone of the digital identity work that Leon Schreiber is doing with the population register.

“In this adjustments budget, R150-million is allocated towards enhancing the technical capabilities of the digital services unit to lead the development of the MyMzansi app, which will allow citizens to access government services through a single digital platform,” Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana said in his budget speech on Wednesday, 21 October.

That hard work also teed up our hat-wearing master of coin nicely to take a swing at putting the public chequebook to work covering Ramaphosa’s promises.

“To give effect to what President Ramaphosa announced concerning the unacceptably high levels of gender-based violence and femicide in South Africa, we make the following allocations:

• R3.8-billion to hire more than 3,500 social workers specifically to strengthen prevention in response to rising murders and attacks on women; and

• R186-million allocated to forensic and investigative capacity, we are expanding sexual offences courts from 55 to 101 and increasing the number of countrywide Thuthuzela Care Centres that provide support to rape victims, from 72 to 80, by 2028/29.

“To improve national coordination and oversight of government’s response to GBVF, an additional R157.4-million is allocated to the Department of Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities.”

Where the fiscal rubber meets the local road

The headline that will be most welcome to us fellow South Africans is definitely the R3 and R1.50 fuel levy reduction on diesel and petrol, respectively. The relief will come on 4 November and continue until 1 December, after which the respective levy relief drops to R1.50 and R1 per litre until 5 January.

This amounts to an investment of R10-billion which is coming from the Central Energy Fund overrun.

“We are allocating an additional R21.8-billion to the local government equitable share, to cover the higher bulk costs of free basic water, sanitation, electricity and refuse removal,” the minister announced around municipal division of revenue.

But there is also extra funding coming from the fuel levy. “We are increasing the general fuel levy allocation by R13.4-billion, restoring the metros’ share to 23% over the medium term.”

The DG was on hand to clarify that there is a requirement for Treasury to give local government a 23% share of fuel levy revenue, but it has typically only been at 18%.

A quick refresher on fuel levies

The general levy is a tax motorists pay to support the infrastructure that cars use. The RAF levy funds the victims of road accidents – mostly pedestrians, cyclists or public transport commuters. The slate levy is the difference between the cost of acquiring and distributing fuel around the country across the month, versus what costs were recovered through the sale of fuel.

Other standouts in the MTBPS include an additional R20.5-billion to the provincial equitable share “to help provinces meet higher costs of healthcare and education”.

There will be a revised second draft of the crypto regulations that take into account the “thousands of comments” that will take a different approach to solving the issues around that.

Achieving maximum efficiency

A weird outcome of the efficiency-oriented approach to budgeting is that there were savings on the child grants. “Because of falling birthrates, we are actually seeing a reduction in the number of recipients,” Britton explained.

And it is those savings, alongside the SRD verification gains mentioned earlier, that has giving Treasury team the wiggle room to deliver on another programme that the government has committed to via Ramaphosa promises.

“Reflecting on our commitment to the social wage and supporting poor and working-class households, the budget continues to be highly distributive,” the minister said, referring to social wage spending including health, education, social development and the provision of shelter and services to low-income households that now constitutes 60% of non-interest expenditure.

“It also funds subsidised basic education to over 77% of schoolgoing children, providing them with meals through the national school nutrition programme 2026. The budget also funds a comprehensive social safety net of old-age, disability and child support, and other social grants to 18.1 million beneficiaries.”

Godongwana continued in oddly melancholic fashion, saying how stunting and malnutrition robs our children from fully reaching their growth and learning potential.

The primary focus will be on pre-birth care and the first 1,000 days of life, “R1.6-billion is allocated over the medium term”.

The meet en pas method behind the MTBPS is painting a picture of fiscal confidence.

In a briefing address to the media, Deputy Minister David Masondo (also a self-confessed Maverick Insider) said that all the previous decisions that led to debt stabilising and other positive momentum in the economy helped us better manage the shocks of 2026. He is not wrong, but the good ship Mzansi still took on water. DM