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South Africa’s provinces spent R810.9bn in the fourth quarter of the 2025/26 financial year, representing 99.1% of an adjusted budget of R818.4bn, the National Treasury said on Wednesday.In a report in which it lauded provinces’ improved execution of capital projects and revenue performance, the Treasury said expenditure was up 6.1%, or R46.7bn, in the fourth quarter of 2025/26 compared with the same period in 2024/25.The country’s nine provinces have the responsibility of delivering social services according to nationally determined norms and standards, including providing basic education for 13.6-million learners and healthcare for the 53.4-million people without private medical insurance. Because legislation limits provinces’ ability to raise their own revenue, they are highly dependent on national transfers, which accounted for about 97% of provincial revenue in 2024/25.Provinces’ own revenue collections are estimated to total R95.2bn over the current medium-term expenditure framework, the rolling three-year budgeting and planning tool used by the government. Preliminary spending on education amounted to R339.2bn in the fourth quarter, or 99.7% of the sector’s adjusted budget of R340.3bn, the Treasury said. This reflected an increase of R21bn, or 6.6%, from the same period the previous financial year.Health expenditure was R276.6bn against an adjusted budget of R278.3bn, an increase of 6.2%, while social development took up R23.4bn, up 4.9%.Spending on salaries in provinces was R499.2bn in the fourth quarter, an increase of 5.8% from 2024/25.Year-to-date capital spending amounts to R43.5bn, up 9.4% year on year and indicating better execution of capital projects in the financial year, the Treasury said.“Provinces collected R27.6bn, 103.5% of the adjusted own revenue budget of R26.7bn. This reflects an increase of R1.4bn or 5.3% compared to the same period in the previous financial year, indicating improved provincial revenue performance,” it added.In its February budget review, the Treasury said over the 2026 medium-term expenditure framework period, more than half of nationally raised revenue would be transferred to the nine provinces and 257 municipalities.It noted that provincial and local governments had autonomy to prepare their own plans and budgets within the national policy framework but bemoaned the fact that despite large transfers, operational and financial management weaknesses persisted.After over a decade in which intergovernmental financing flows had masked provincial and municipal performance weaknesses, the national government would now move from oversight to active structural intervention. This included centralising the functions of the government’s human resource, payroll and administration system, conducting employee verification through identification systems, and requiring provincial treasuries and premiers’ offices to approve the filling of all posts against verified recruitment plans and available funding. Together, these reforms would move the system towards a more capable, disciplined and performance-orientated model of subnational governance, the Treasury said.Recent provincial budgeting processes have been fraught with political tensions. In March, the Gauteng legislature adopted a R179.2bn budget for 2026/27 despite opposition parties slamming it as being focused on the wrong priorities and not doing enough to fix collapsing infrastructure, which has resulted in a water, electricity and crumbling roads crisis.In KwaZulu-Natal, union Fedusa was up in arms in March after the provincial department of education allegedly withdrew approvals previously granted to educators for early retirement packages, citing financial constraints. This was despite the National Treasury allocating R1.76bn in additional funding to provinces in the 2025/26 fiscal year for early retirement and voluntary exit programmes.Meanwhile, the Western Cape has pleaded for financial assistance from the national government, saying the scale of the damage caused by severe weather that lashed the province in May — estimated at R9bn — exceeded provincial departments’ budgets and delivery capacity.
