Budget Speech 2025

Madam Speaker, a three-year wage agreement has been reached. Although the agreement exceeds the 2024 Budget and MTBPS projections, its duration reduces uncertainty in budget planning.

This agreement will cost an additional R7.3 billion in 2025/26, R7.8 billion in 2026/27 and R8.2 billion in 2027/28.

An amount of R11 billion is provisionally allocated over the next two fiscal years for the early retirement initiative, whose intention is to attract younger employees into the public service. Preliminary savings are expected to average R7.1 billion per year over the medium-to-long term. The savings will be retained by departments.

The interventions on the wage bill are aimed at ensuring that when key frontline staff are lost through natural attrition and retirement, sectors are able to fill vacant posts to keep services running effectively.