Press Statement: CIVIL SOCIETY PROPOSES ALTERNATIVE, PEOPLE-CENTERED BUDGET 20 February 2018

20 FEBRUARY 2018

PRESS RELEASE

CIVIL SOCIETY PROPOSES ALTERNATIVE, PEOPLE-CENTERED BUDGET

Broad collective of socio-economic rights organisations offer example of a budget which takes ordinary South Africans seriously.

Minister Gigaba will be asked to make hard, but essential budget choices in his first budget speech in Parliament tomorrow.

But the Minister’s task will be to allocate funds in such a way as to ensure that South Africa’s chronic poverty and inequality are alleviated, and that effect is given to the rights of the most vulnerable.

A broad cross-section of South African civil society has collaborated to draft an alternative ‘Human Rights Budget’, which sets out what a budget that takes the rights of ordinary people seriously would look like.