Political parties disagree on their approach to budget

While some political parties have said they will vote in support of the national budget, others said they were holding discussions to introduce significant changes, particularly on the proposed VAT hike. 

On Tuesday, the DA said it had made it clear from the outset that under no circumstances did it believe the budget should have a VAT hike, while ActionSA said it met with the ANC on Sunday to discuss its approach to the budget. 

ActionSA’s Alan Beesley MP said the final explicit requirement for the party’s strictly conditional support for the budget was the removal of the VAT increase and an inflation-based adjustment to income tax brackets.

“ActionSA has put forward viable alternatives to cover the revenue gap, which we have done to show that protecting South Africans from unnecessary tax hikes is both possible and necessary without political grandstanding,” he said.

Beesley said the party had served as a constructive opposition to a government of national unity (GNU) that has “achieved no reforms since coming into office and has demonstrated a level of incoherence that offers little hope of providing solutions to the complex challenges facing South Africans”. 

“Whether political parties accept our constructive inputs made in the interests of the South African people, or whether they push forward with tax proposals against their interests, will be up to those parties,” he said. 

The Patriotic Alliance said it would vote in favour of the budget, with spokesperson Steven Motale saying: "[We] hope as the GNU we can get over this hurdle together.”

Good Party leader Patricia de Lille said her party would also support the budget. 

“The 0.5 percentage point VAT hike must be read together with the attempts by the National Treasury to cushion the poor and to soften the blow on poor people. More food has been exempted from VAT. There is no increase in the fuel levy. There are a number of attempts from National Treasury to soften the impact on the poor,” she said.  

Rize Mzansi leader Songezo Zibi said no single political party had the option of rejecting the budget.

“The law says you approve or amend. You have to table a proposal. If you don’t table a proposal, then you are not helping the finance minister produce the budget that he or she needs. The first thing that needs to be pointed out is that the political parties that merely say they reject it are being unhelpful.”

He said what was important for his party were the citizens who were already struggling to pay their bills.

Zibi said if the 0.5 percentage point VAT hike stays, then it should only do so until October. “In October, the finance minister tables an amendment to the budget to get rid of it completely in February,” he said.

Between October and February, he said, the government could identify cost savings it could make from wasteful expenditure.

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