{"id":880772,"date":"2026-10-21T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=880772"},"modified":"2026-10-21T15:14:42","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T13:14:42","slug":"r45-billion-win-for-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/880772\/r45-billion-win-for-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"R45 billion win for South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>South Africa&#8217;s government has increased its expenditure for the remainder of the year by R45.5 billion, due to increased revenue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS), Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana said government revenue had been higher than initially anticipated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Godongwana said the revenue outlook had increased largely due to higher collections from corporate taxes, dividend tax and Value-Added Tax (VAT).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Gross tax revenue for this year has been revised upwards by R17.1 billion compared with the February estimate.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;A large portion of this improvement is due to higher commodity prices, and these gains are expected to dissipate over the medium term.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This increased revenue has led the South African government to increase expenditure across several areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The additional revenue in 2026\/27 means that we can increase expenditure by R45.5 billion compared<br>to what we said in February,&#8221; Godongwana said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These increases include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>R6.2 billion for unforeseeable and unavoidable expenditure, mostly for disaster relief and rehabilitation.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>R1.9 billion rolled over from the previous financial year.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>R4.3 billion in self-financing expenditure.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>R823 million for the South African Defence Force for the deployment of troops to assist the police in fighting gang-related crimes and to combat illegal mining.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>R516 million for the Madlanga, Khampepe and Nkabinde commissions of inquiry.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Other expenditure adjustments were made to accelerate SARS&#8217; modernisation programme and strengthen the Border Management Authority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Godongwana also announced that South Africa&#8217;s contingency reserve had increased to R10 billion, to protect South Africa from weather-related concerns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The contingency reserve increases to R10 billion to respond to the potential threats associated with<br>the El Ni\u00f1o and other risks,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The in-year expenditure adjustments also allow for early retirement and voluntary exit packages for public service workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;This will rejuvenate the public service and save an average of R4.4 billion a year to address the pressures in the compensation of public sector employees,&#8221; Godongwana said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Adjustments have also been announced for care services for retired South African military members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;A Special Appropriation Bill includes allocations to Parliament and for the continued provision of health care services to retired members of the South African National Defence Force,&#8221; Godongwana said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>During his speech, Godongwana stressed that the R45.5 billion expenditure increase had come despite government losses resulting from the cut to the General Fuel Levy earlier this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This levy was reduced by R3 per litre earlier this year to protect consumers from sharp price hikes, which cost roughly R17 billion in lost tax revenue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>South Africa overshot its revenue targets by R45 billion this year, giving it room to spend more dealing with various crises that have hit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":131,"featured_media":874426,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2112895438583984132","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2244423993044666","_sma_instagram_post_id":"18288831511295611","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[26877,17448,6245,3246],"class_list":["post-880772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-department-of-finance","tag-enoch-godongwana","tag-sandf","tag-sars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/131"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=880772"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":880814,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880772\/revisions\/880814"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/874426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=880772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=880772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=880772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}