On Budget Day, 25 February 2026, the streets leading to Parliament became a powerful reminder that budgets are not just numbers on a spreadsheet; they are decisions about whose lives matter. Under the banner People Against Budget Cuts, community organisations, activists, workers, students, and unemployed people marched to Parliament to demand a different path for South Africa: a People’s Budget.
The message was clear and urgent. Austerity is failing the majority. Years of budget cuts and spending restraint have hollowed out public services, deepened inequality, and pushed millions further into hardship. While politicians debate fiscal targets and debt ratios, communities are dealing with the consequences: overcrowded clinics, underfunded schools, crumbling infrastructure, and a social protection system that leaves too many people behind.
This march was about refusing to accept that this is the only way forward.
Austerity is a Political Choice
For years, the government has justified austerity as necessary discipline. But for the people who marched, austerity is not discipline—it is abandonment.
It means clinics without enough nurses or medicine. It means classrooms where teachers struggle to cope with overcrowding. It means municipalities are unable to provide reliable water, sanitation, or electricity. It means young people searching endlessly for jobs that simply do not exist.
Austerity shifts the burden of economic crisis onto those who can least afford it. Women shoulder more unpaid care work when services collapse. Poor and working-class communities carry the weight of failing infrastructure. The unemployed are told to wait for opportunities that never come.
The truth is simple: you cannot cut your way out of inequality, unemployment, and poverty.
The People’s Alternative
The march to Parliament was not only a protest—it was a declaration that another future is possible. Activists called for a People’s Budget, one that puts the needs of the majority first and invests boldly in the foundations of a just society.
A People’s Budget would prioritise:
Jobs and livelihoods: South Africa faces a devastating unemployment crisis. A People’s Budget would invest in large-scale public employment programmes, industrial development, and community-based initiatives that create decent, meaningful work.
Care and social infrastructure: Care work—whether in homes, communities, clinics, or early childhood centres—keeps society functioning. Yet it remains chronically underfunded and undervalued. Investing in care creates jobs while strengthening the social fabric.
Climate resilience: Climate disasters are already hitting vulnerable communities hardest. A People’s Budget would invest in climate adaptation, renewable energy, and resilient infrastructure that protects both people and the planet.
Stronger social protections: Millions rely on social grants to survive. Activists are calling for expanded social protection, including a universal basic income guarantee above the poverty line.
Public services for dignity: Quality healthcare, education, housing, and municipal services are not luxuries—they are rights. A People’s Budget would rebuild and expand the public systems that sustain everyday life.
Democracy in the Streets
Budget Day is often treated as a technical ritual carried out behind the doors of Parliament. But the march reminded the country that budgets are fundamentally political choices. They determine who benefits from public resources and who is left behind.
By marching to Parliament, People Against Budget Cuts reclaimed the budget as a democratic issue. Communities most affected by austerity made their voices heard, demanding to be part of decisions that shape their lives.
Placards carried a simple but powerful message: People before profit. Fund the future. Stop the cuts.
The Struggle Continues
The march was not the end of the fight; it was another step in a growing movement to challenge austerity and demand economic justice.
Across the country, communities are organising for better services, fair wages, climate justice, and a dignified life for all. The demand for a People’s Budget is part of that broader struggle: a vision of an economy that works for the many, not the few.
Budgets reveal priorities. And on Budget Day 2026, over 500 people stood outside Parliament to say that South Africa’s priorities must change.
The people have spoken: stop the cuts, and fund the future.
