As budget process set to start from scratch, DA & FF Plus' GNU positions remain tenuous
Neither party was present on Thursday, when the ANC announced it and other GNU partners, as well as ActionSA and BOSA had swayed the minister to reverse a VAT increase.
Political parties that passed the 2025 fiscal framework in Parliament held a media briefing on 24 April 2025. Picture: @MYANC/X
CAPE TOWN - As the national budget process looks set to start from scratch, the Democratic Alliance (DA) and the Freedom Front Plus' positions in the Government of National Unity (GNU) remain tenuous.
Neither party was present on Thursday, when the African National Congress (ANC) announced it and other GNU partners, as well as ActionSA and Build One South Africa (BOSA) had swayed the minister to reverse a value-added tax (VAT) increase.
While the DA said it won't be backing down on its court challenge it launched in the high court this week despite the VAT reversal, the FF Plus said it would participate in the processes that would follow to pass an alternative budget.
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By law, the finance minister has to table a national budget within a month or as soon as possible after the start of a new financial year.
After an initial delay in tabling the budget in February as GNU partners railed against a proposed two percentage point VAT increase, Minister Enoch Godongwana tabled a budget three weeks later.
Now he plans to withdraw those bills, leaving Parliament in another budget limbo.
House chairperson, Cedric Frolick, said while the House waits for Godongwana to outline his next moves, the work of Parliament won’t stop.
"We will implore, from the side of the Office of the Speaker, with the leader of government of business, that we can get certainty, that we get the dates, so that we can move forward with our programme of the National Assembly to deal with this very important item concerning the budget but there is other work."
Thursday’s announcement by Treasury also created uncertainty in portfolio committees about whether to proceed with the interrogation of departments' spending plans for the year.
For now, the instruction from political parties collaborating with the ANC is for Treasury to conduct spending reviews to find more revenue to fund a revised budget.