In a thoughtful reflection on South Africa’s mid-term budget, Yugen Pillay, Partner and Head of Public Sector at BDO South Africa, highlights the encouraging signs of economic recovery while urging greater urgency in tackling crime and corruption to safeguard progress.

It was pleasing to note that we will be in a budget surplus come year end. It’s a clear sign of the hard work that’s gone into turning around our economy driven by both government and the private sector. Public private partnerships have always been a reliable economic tool and what we’ve seen over the last few months and in todays budget speech echoes the strength of what can be achieved when we put our hands together.

We’ve accomplished coming off the grey list, something that’s going to help propel our economy by attracting investment in. Inflation has also dropped and will be targeted at around 3% going forward which is important in assisting with debt levels and driving our economic recovery.

The minister indicated a revised 1.8% growth for 2026 to 2028 and whilst this is still short of where we need to be, it’s a step in the right direction and a clear sign that we are slowly turning the corner and are poised for sustainable growth which is long overdue. The knock-on impact here will help reduce unemployment and reduce the number of people living in poverty as well.

However, with all the good news flowing from the budget, one would have expected to hear something about the fight against crime and corruption which is becoming a force in SA. It was disappointing that nothing tangible was mentioned, except for the introduction of the dashboard, when we’ve just heard the Head of the NDPP saying that “SA is not winning the fight against organized crime” which is quite concerning, and which should be on the radar of our decision makers. Now is the time to increase our focus on crime and corruption so that we don’t offset the good that we have achieved to date. There’s no point in increasing revenue flows and growth while the expenditure relating to crime and corruption also widens. For our economy to grow sustainability this needs to be managed effectively.

Overall a favorable mid-term budget and we now look forward to the 2026/2027 budget which promises to showcase the growth of our green shoots which we are seeing.