Budget 2025 expected to be settled when Parly sits to vote for Appropriation Bill
The Appropriation Bill sets out allocations to departments from the national budget.
The venue at the CTICC being prepared on 13 June 2024 for the first sitting of Parliament on 14 June 2024 following the May elections. Picture: @ParliamentofRSA/X
JOHANNESBURG - The Budget 2025 mayhem is expected to be settled on Wednesday when Parliament sits to vote on the Appropriation Bill in the last step to finalise what has been a contentious process.
The Appropriation Bill sets out allocations to departments from the national budget.
A parliamentary legal opinion suggests that the Appropriation Bill can only be passed if all departmental votes have been agreed to.
But it won’t be fiscal policy in the spotlight on Wednesday, with months of political tensions between the African National Congress (ANC) and the Democratic Alliance (DA) overshadowing legislation.
Every February, the minister of finance presents a package of budget documents to Parliament, including the fiscal framework and revenue proposals, the Division of Revenue Bill and the Appropriation Bill.
Parliament must consider these budget instruments and money bills in that order and according to stipulated timeframes.
In the past, it’s been a largely seamless process, with the ANC’s seats enough to pass all the bills even when the opposition rejected some of them.
But after losing its House majority at the last general elections, it's now taken a lot more negotiation to get the budget over the line.
After some hiccups with the initial budget speech, the fiscal framework was approved with the DA’s buy-in almost two months ago.
The Division of Revenue Bill that allocates money to the three spheres of government got the thumbs up, just before new tensions were sparked between the two main coalition parties after the DA’s Andrew Whitfield was axed as deputy trade minister.
This impasse led the DA to once again put out its bargaining chips, calling for ministers implicated in corruption to be fired or it would reject the Appropriation Bill at Wednesday's sitting.
While Higher Education Minister Nobuhle Nkabane is out, Human Settlements Minister Thembi Simelane remains.
The DA said Nkabane's firing is sufficient for it to back the budget.
What happens in the next few hours will likely be another defining moment for the Government of National Unity (GNU) and the country.