How budget and funding priorities enable economic empowerment, safety and dignity

Honourable Speaker,

After thirty-two years of democracy, the central question before us is no longer whether freedom was promised. It was. The harder question is whether residents can exercise that freedom in the ordinary hours of daily life.

A young person in Delft may have the right to work, but if there is no job, no transport money, and no safe route to an interview, that right remains distant. A mother in Khayelitsha may have every constitutional protection, but if gang violence determines when her children can leave the house, freedom is narrowed by fear. A learner may have a place in a classroom, but if hunger arrives before the lesson begins, opportunity is weakened before the school day starts.

That is how freedom is tested. 

And Speaker, in the Western Cape, through our provincial budget, is where we answer that test. It is where our values are translated into financial commitments. It is where we show we are serious about work, serious about safety, serious about dignity, and serious about treating public money as a trust placed in its hands by the people. 

Our budget is built around a clear logic. Growth gives people a route into the economy. Safety protects the space in which that route can be used. Education, health, food security and housing give people the stability to take opportunity when it arrives. Remove one of these elements, and the rest cannot carry the weight.

That is why economic empowerment begins with growth. Poverty is not defeated by renaming dependency. It is defeated when people can earn, own, trade, move, save, invest, and build lives with greater control over their own future.

This government has therefore committed R36.651 billion over the 2026 medium term to our Apex Growth for Jobs priority. That funding supports the practical machinery of growth. It supports investment promotion, exports, energy and water resilience, skills, infrastructure, innovation, and the removal of barriers that make it harder for firms to expand and hire.

The evidence is measurable in immediate economic activity. In 2024/25, fourteen investment projects were facilitated with a combined value of approximately R14 billion, expected to generate more than 11 000 jobs over the next five years. More than 200 export declarations were secured, with a combined estimated value of more than R5 billion. That is what economic empowerment looks like when it moves from slogan to transaction, from transaction to investment, and from investment to work.

These capital inflows have translated directly into labour market outcomes. In the fourth quarter of 2025, the Western Cape recorded an unemployment rate of 18.1 per cent, compared with 31.4 per cent nationally. In that same quarter, this province added 93 000 jobs, while South Africa as a whole added 44 000. 

But Speaker, we are not stopping at the headline number. We are funding the pathways that make work reachable. The Jobseeker Travel Voucher Programme will be expanded with an additional R5.08 million over the medium term in Cape Town and George, giving eligible work-seekers free travel on Golden Arrow services so that the cost of getting to an interview does not become the reason an opportunity is missed. YearBeyond will continue to create more than 3 000 opportunities for young people under 25 who are not in employment, education or training, while the 1 000 Stories Libraries Programme receives a further R9 million to place young people in libraries as reading champions across the province.

The same logic runs through our skills pipeline. DEDAT’s Skills Development Programme receives R250.567 million over the medium term to align training with real labour-market demand, while more than 2 900 unemployed youth have already received workplace experience and accredited training in sectors such as business process outsourcing, hospitality, clothing and textiles, last-mile delivery and technology. In agriculture, the Elsenburg Agricultural Training Institute continues to build the skilled workforce that one of our most important labour-absorbing sectors depends on, with 137 students graduating in 2024/25 and a target of 80 graduates per year over the medium term. A further R18.5 million is added to agricultural education and training so that more youth and farm workers can gain accredited qualifications and practical skills.

And because no economy grows without movement, we are also investing in the physical routes that connect people to opportunity. Road construction and maintenance receives R11.109 billion over the medium term. The 13 km George Western Bypass has been completed, easing congestion and improving access between the N2 and Outeniqua Pass. The Malmesbury Bypass continues, strengthening the R45 corridor and improving links between the Saldanha Bay Industrial Development Zone, the N1 and the N2. The Go George public transport network receives R329.197 million over the medium term, supporting scheduled, reliable and affordable transport for around 14 000 passengers a day.

Those numbers matter because every job carries a human story. It is rent paid. It is food bought without borrowing. It is school shoes replaced before they fall apart. It is the quiet restoration of agency in a household that has lived too long under pressure.

Speaker, the cost of living also decides how far a wage can carry a family. That is why the DA has fought nationally for fuel levy relief, because fuel costs do not stay at the pump. They move into taxi fares, food prices, delivery costs and the daily cost of keeping a household going. Here in the Western Cape, our response is practical. The Western Cape Energy Resilience Programme receives R452.529 million over the medium term, including R62 million for alternative energy procurement mechanisms and platforms, R6.006 million for municipal electricity master plans, R43.530 million for solar PV at schools, R36.539 million for PV systems in provincial health buildings, R4 million for solar PV at emergency medical and forensic pathology facilities, and R9 million for solar PV in rural clinics. Water resilience is funded with the same seriousness. The Department of Local Government receives an additional R127.328 million over the medium term for water resilience and drought response, while total Water Resilience and Drought Response projects amount to R177.942 million over the 2026 MTEF. And in the City of Cape Town, this principle reaches households through targeted tariff relief for poorer residents. Qualifying households receive support on basic municipal services such as water, sanitation, refuse removal, property rates and electricity, with additional indigent relief for low-income households. That is what basic service relief means in practice. It protects poor households from being priced out of the services that make dignity possible.

This work is now being strengthened by the Department of Local Government’s updated Basket of Services study. The study moves beyond a one-size-fits-all view of Free Basic Services and asks what level of support is actually needed for indigent households to live with dignity in a period of rising tariffs, water stress and energy insecurity. It points to a more realistic service basket, including higher basic water and electricity thresholds and the growing importance of connectivity for job-seeking and learning, while also recognising that municipalities must remain financially sustainable. That is the right balance: relief that protects poor households today, and a co-responsibility model that helps families move from survival toward social mobility.

But Speaker, work cannot flourish where fear rules the street.

A budget that speaks about growth while ignoring violence would be dishonest. Crime is an economic tax on the poor. It closes shops early. It raises the cost of transport. It drives customers away. It weakens schools, scares off investment, and turns public spaces into boundaries that residents are forced to negotiate every day.

That is why this budget commits R8.595 billion over the medium term to our Safety priority. It is why R1.140 billion is earmarked for the LEAP programme as it develops into a sustained provincial law enforcement capacity. It is why we continue to support targeted deployments in high-crime areas, strengthen oversight, support violence prevention, and build partnerships where national policing failure has left communities exposed.

In 2024/25, more than 1 000 trained LEAP officers were maintained in high-crime precincts. Since September 2024, deployment has been focused on six priority zones: Delft, Gugulethu, Khayelitsha, Mitchells Plain, Nyanga and Philippi East. These are communities where residents know the sound of violence too well, and where the state has a duty to be present. Over the 2026 medium term, LEAP will maintain at least 850 learner law enforcement officers and extend support to 25 municipalities. We are also backing this work through systems such as ShotSpotter and the Emergency Policing Incident Command platform, because visible officers must be supported by better information, faster coordination and sharper deployment.

Let us be clear. Policing is a national mandate. The constitutional responsibility for SAPS does not sit with the Western Cape Government. But the fear is local. The funeral is local. The small business that closes its doors is local. The child who cannot walk safely to school lives here.

We are also investing in the practical tools needed to fight crime. An additional R80 million in 2026/27 is provided for two heavy-duty mobile diagnostic scanners to improve detection and enforcement at weighbridges, ports, provincial borders, freight corridors and major event checkpoints. These scanners will help detect illicit goods, narcotics, firearms, stolen vehicles and trafficked persons without relying only on slow and risky manual inspections. This is what a serious safety strategy looks like. It puts officers on the ground, strengthens intelligence, and gives enforcement teams the equipment they need to disrupt criminal networks.

Safety is therefore a significant part of our economic empowerment strategy. It gives communities the confidence to trade, travel, learn, invest and gather. It gives people back the basic freedom to move through their own neighbourhoods without fear making the decision for them. 

Speaker, dignity then requires the deeper work of care.

A person cannot participate fully in the economy when illness is untreated, hunger is constant, housing is unstable, and children are left without support. That is why we committed R208.643 billion over the medium term to our Educated, Healthy and Caring Society priority. This is the largest share of the budget because dignity is built across a lifetime.

That work starts in the classroom, before the first lesson is taught. The National School Nutrition Programme receives R1.771 billion over the medium term to provide daily nutritious meals to learners in Quintile 1 to 3 primary, secondary and special schools. This programme reaches more than half a million learners across 1 069 public ordinary and special schools. 

Speaker, this programme means that hunger does not get the first word in a classroom.

But food is only one part of giving a learner a fair start. The Rapid School Build Programme is building new schools faster in communities where demand for school places is greatest. By 2025, the programme had completed 15 new schools in communities including Delft, Atlantis, Crossroads and Kwanokuthula. For the 2026 school year, 9 new schools were fully completed and opened in a phased approach. 

From the classroom, the same duty follows families into the health system. R86.98 billion is committed over the medium term to support equitable health services, strengthen community health work, and shift more of the system toward prevention, wellness and primary care. A working family that can access healthcare without financial ruin has dignity. An older person who receives care close to home has dignity. A community that can prevent illness before it becomes a crisis has dignity.

For households already under strain, care must also reach into the daily economy of the home. R214.815 million is allocated across food-security and social-distress interventions, including household and school food gardens, nutritious meal support, food distribution centres, community nutrition development programmes, and food relief for families facing acute hardship. This is care with a clear purpose. It responds to immediate need while strengthening the ability of families and communities to recover.

The scale of that work is real. More than R2 billion is allocated to Human Settlements in the 2026/27 Infrastructure Budget. At Welmoed near Stellenbosch, more than 10 000 houses are being built. The Ithemba Project in Eerste Rivier is expected to provide around 2 400 housing opportunities, with community facilities and services. Progress will continue at Conradie, including Phase 2 social housing and planning for Phase 3, while the Leeuloop Precinct in the Cape Town CBD will be handed over for construction. Further mixed-use and mixed-income projects, including Founders Garden, are part of the same effort to bring residents closer to jobs, transport and services.

The same principle applies to the spaces where people live. Through integrated human settlement development, spatial planning, and mixed-use and mixed-income projects such as Conradie, this government is working to correct the geography of exclusion. The budget commits R6.237 billion over the 2026 medium term to promote sustainable integrated human settlement development in the Western Cape. Dignity is weakened when people are pushed far from work, far from transport, and far from services. The budget must therefore help reshape space so that opportunity is closer to where people live.

None of this can holds without discipline.

Because a budget does not fail first in Parliament. It fails later, in the places where people wait for the promise to arrive. It fails when a clinic cannot fill a post. It fails when a school repair is delayed for another year. It fails when a safety deployment is thinned out. It fails when a feeding scheme has to stretch too far. It fails when the money has been voted, announced, and applauded, but never reaches the resident it was meant to serve.

That is why clean governance is an act of protection. It protects the child who depends on a meal at school. It protects the patient who needs a working clinic. It protects the small business owner who needs safe streets and reliable infrastructure. It protects the taxpayer who has the right to know that sacrifice is being converted into service.

Honourable Speaker, this is the moral weight of a budget. It takes the large language of freedom and forces it into the real economy of daily life. It turns growth into work. It turns safety into movement. It turns care into stability. It turns disciplined spending into dignity that can be felt in a home, in a classroom, in a clinic, and in a community.

That is the Western Cape’s answer to this debate. Economic empowerment is not built by speeches alone. Safety is not restored by outrage alone. Dignity is not protected by sympathy alone. They are built through choices, funded through budgets, measured through delivery, and defended through discipline.

Freedom that works requires a state that works. It requires money that reaches its purpose. It requires a government that understands that every rand wasted is a door closed to someone who needed it open.

In the Western Cape, we are keeping those doors open. We are funding growth so that people can work. We are funding safety so that people can live without fear. We are funding care so that dignity survives hardship. And we are doing it with the discipline required to make freedom real, one budget decision at a time.