Budget 2026 arrives as fiscal pressures converge directly with the critical needs of the energy, oil and gas industry, writes Aluwani Museisi, the executive director responsible for Country Strategy at Shell Downstream SA.
Rising demands on the public purse, including the legally mandated extension of the Social Relief of Distress Grant and increasing defence expenditure, continue to strain limited resources, he says.
These pressures sit alongside persistent underspending across various government programmes, where billions remain unused each year.
Expect significant reallocations from chronically underspent programmes toward strategic infrastructure essential to the energy value chain, including ports, rail, pipelines, storage facilities, and the national grid. Without these systems operating at full capacity, South Africa cannot efficiently import, transport, refine or distribute the energy products that power its economy.
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