South Africans should brace themselves for fierce negotiations over the Budget as the DA, the second biggest party in the Government of National Unity (GNU), has made it clear that they will not simply rubberstamp a Budget proposed by the ANC.
DA leader John Steenhuisen has signalled that while the party will engage in negotiations regarding the Budget vote, they have serious reservations about the current proposal’s effectiveness in addressing economic growth and job creation.
This sentiment was echoed on Thursday during a Budget discussion among DA leaders, where Finance Deputy Minister Ashor Sarupen voiced his disappointment with the Budget tabled by Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana.
Sarupen said it did not resolve the fundamental problems in the economy.
“It is business as usual, and business as usual is not good enough. Unemployment has gone up from 22% to 33% in the last 15 years or so,” Sarupen said.
He said the ANC cannot pursue the same policy agenda when it now has 39% of the seats in Parliament.
“They can’t expect us to rubber stamp. We want the reforms. We want people to get jobs. We want to lower the cost of living,” said Sarupen, who is also DA’s federal council deputy chairperson
DA spokesperson on finance, Mark Burke, said a “pseudo budget” does not have majority support.
“The ANC knew this when they sent the Minister of Finance,” Burke said.
DA councillor Tami Jackson said gone were the days when they were accustomed to the ANC majority and rubber-stamping legislation and budget.
“We are in a completely different era where everything is up for debate and nothing is set in stone,” Jackson said.
Burke noted that the ANC had backed down from the 2% VAT increase, but it still proposed a 1% hike split over two years.
“We have not seen the increase we want to see,” he said, adding that there were undefined terms on the spending review Godongwana announced on Wednesday.
Sarupen said Godongwana’s Budget was raising the cost of living and it was unfair to every single South African to pay for the price of the ANC’s failed policies of the last 15 years.
“Until they agree to those, we are to have Budget fights every single year, and so there is no time to waste.”
He said they have been on the GNU journey now for eight months, and the ANC needed to learn that they do not govern alone.
“They need to learn so that they don’t bring budgets that bring hardship onto ordinary South Africans while, for example, the public service above inflation salary increases.
“It is going to cost the taxpayer R7 billion to pay above inflation increases, that is more than the increases in social grants,” he said.
Burke said they wanted the implementation of a six-point plan that comprised no tax increases, immediate cuts on unnecessary spending, strategic review of inefficiencies, opening the economy, and ensuring that there were no cuts on critical services.
According to Sarupen, the Budget could be funded from the existing baseline by cutting wastage, programmes that do not have impact, and also increasing tax compliance.
“It is not difficult to do these things,” he said.
“We can tax this year, but next year, we are going to be in the same crisis because of the crisis of growth,” he said.