Civil society organisations held a meeting to discuss and unpack how the government can be held accountable to its constitutional obligations regarding equality, dignity and socio-economic rights for all in its Medium Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS).
Rural Health Advocacy Project and the Budget Justice Coalition hosted the pre-MTBPS discussion on Tuesday.
The Budget Justice Coalition facilitated the conversation between Rural Health Advocacy Project, SECTION27, HEALA, Institute for Economic Justice, Black Sash and Equal Education.
“MTBPS is a key tool to demonstrate the commitments made in the Constitution, to achieve equality, dignity and socio-economic rights for all. It is also a political statement made by government on how it understands these obligations,” said RHAP in a statement on Tuesday.
The organisation said one of the ways the government could be held accountable is by enabling public participation in the budget process.
During the discussion the civil society organisations called for human rights to be given greater priority in the budget, and for the government to move away from its overly simplistic focus on debt reduction.
“In the past decade, real spending on education and healthcare has fallen dramatically due to austerity policies. The most asked question from the participants in the discussion was: where will the money to invest in human rights come from?” said RHAP.
Daniel McLaren from SECTION27 pointed out the key reasons for the increase in public debt over the past decade:
- State capture, which meant that funds intended for developmental public purposes were wasted on enriching private individuals; the biggest impact of this on our fiscus was the capture and decimation of Sars.
- Low economic growth and in particular the Covid-19-induced deep recession.
- The gradual but consistent lowering of corporate and personal income tax rates in South Africa since 1997, which has lowered our potential tax revenue, leading to a structural budget deficit.
The organisations agreed the government’s responsibility is to ensure that funds are sufficient to improve human rights holistically.