27 May 2026

House Chairperson,

Ministers,

Honourable Members,

Fellow South Africans

I stand before this August house today on behalf of the ANC to support this budget vote for the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation. This budget hon members is not a mere collection of fiscal projections or abstract targets, but the programmatic blueprint for building a capable, resilient and developmental State.

House Chairperson

In our 2024 Election Manifesto, the ANC made an unbreakable sacred covenant with the people of South Africa to aggressively build an inclusive economy, accelerate massive infrastructure investment and strengthen the delivery of basic frontline services. The Batho Principles should not only be on paper, but also be experienced by the people we serve. Restoring the dignity of our people is also linked to how we serve them.

Hon Members, no nation can build a sustainable, equitable future on short-term impulses or fragmented interventions. If you plan for an election cycle, you fail the next generation. That is why central planning must be positioned as the nervous system of our developmental State. At the centre of this Structural vision is the National Planning Commission. This NPC is our long-term strategic radar. The development of institutional technical capacity within the NPC is critical to ensure the NPC continually plays a role in advising on policy implementation plans in different spheres. The capacity of the NPC to model policy implementation with a long-term horizon is vital. As we prepare for the next long-term planning cycle, post-2030, we should use the next cycle as an opportunity to develop robust capabilities of the NPC.

Without the institutionalised, predictive capability, our infrastructure deployment and fiscal allocations will be reactive, excessively costly and structurally inefficient.

Global markets are overflowing with private institutional capital searching for a stable, long-term, high-impact investment destination.

One of our structural bottlenecks is poor project preparation. We cannot crowd in adequate private capital to support infrastructure development without eroding state control. We should crowd in capital with bulletproof, bankable, and highly technical feasibility studies to ensure optimal financial sector asset allocation for infrastructure development. This requires a focused approach to monitor project preparation to massify development to be financed and to monitor contract management to enhance project implementation.

To fix this, we must massify our national infrastructure development in the pipeline with shovel-ready projects covering the medium term.

We take direct guidance from the groundbreaking NPC report on financial architecture. This report provides both the diagnostic truth and the clear structural remedy. We must reform our financial architecture and seamlessly blend public and private capital, aggressively de-risk large-scale projects at an early stage and create a transparent multi-year pipeline that gives state financing institutions and domestic and global investors the concrete confidence to deploy trillions of rands into our national terrain.

Honourable House Chair

We do not build infrastructure for the sake of abstract macroeconomic metrics or statistical vanity. We build it to restore dignity for the working class of this country. Our capital allocation remains dual-focused on social and economic infrastructure to transform frontline service delivery.  We

When we invest in social infrastructure, we are investing directly in basic human dignity. We mean building and maintaining the schools, hospitals, roads, a reliable bulk water treatment plant and the safe sanitation systems that our communities rightfully demand.

Simultaneously, we are scaling up economic Infrastructure- the very engine of sustainable growth. This means overhauling our freight rail corridors, expanding our port capacities, securing our energy grids and modernising our road networks. By doing that, we lower the cost of doing business, unlock localised manufacturing, link isolated rural economies to major urban markets, and create the rapid economic growth needed to decisively break the back of unemployment, poverty and inequality.

Finally, honourable members, let us confront the historic legal weakness that has often diluted our planning efforts. For too long, the strategic directives of our central planning authorities have been treated across various spheres of the state as polite, optional recommendations. Through the budgetary resources allocated today, this Department is finalising a comprehensive White Paper on planning. This White Paper is the foundational precursor to a decisive legislative intervention, the introduction of formal, binding Planning Legislation.  

This upcoming legislation will give our national planning framework real, sharp, institutional teeth. It will make the decisions and directives of the department legally binding and consequential. If an organ of State, a Province, or a municipality attempts to allocate capital or build infrastructure outside the strict boundaries of our national spatial and economic planning frameworks, there will be immediate, hard legal and budgetary consequences.

In conclusion, the ANC Manifesto explicitly directed us to defend our democratic gains, deepen transformation, and accelerate economic growth. Let us approve this budget, let us roll up our sleeves and let us transform our society and create a better life. Our people are waiting.

I thank you