Where you live decides where your provincial tax money goes
South Africa’s provinces spend most of their money on education and healthcare, but new data shows where you live can make a big difference to which service gets the bigger slice.
South Africa allocates a significant portion of its provincial budget to education and healthcare, with education receiving the larger share in every province. However, the division of these funds varies greatly depending on the province's population and median age. In 2024/25, education and health combined accounted for R578.8 billion, or 75.8%, of the R763.4 billion spent by provincial governments.
Gauteng, with the largest population, spent the most overall at R167.1 billion and almost evenly divided its two biggest spending priorities, allocating 39.8% to education and 38.7% to health. In contrast, Limpopo, the province with the youngest population, devoted almost half of its spending to education, the highest proportion in the country, while allocating less than 30% to health.
The Western Cape, with the oldest population, allocated the smallest share of its spending to education, at 37.7%.
Written by urgent.news from IOL's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
