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The Democratic Alliance cautiously welcomes the revenue and expenditure proposals in the Minister of Finance’s Budget Speech. We see this as a pathway to a National Budget which we should be able to support when it comes time to vote.

Today, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana presented a Budget proposal which is a manifestation of coalition politics in action. It is a workable outcome in the context of trying economic times.

The DA was not prepared to get behind a budget that maintained unsustainable government expenditure on the back of raising VAT, making struggling South Africans pay for inefficiencies and waste in Government – but today’s version from Minister Godongwana has gone some way to undo this.

It is a victory for all South Africans that the mooted VAT hike has now finally been removed from the Minister’s revenue proposals, after the DA court action in this regard.

Overall we see this Budget Speech as a turning of the tide toward growth and investment. It is turning away from unchecked government spending funded by South African taxpayers.

The DA realises our economy desperately needs to grow and government must budget for this, creating the environment that enable this growth in the private sector.

The most notable and welcome aspects of today’s proposal from the Minister of Finance are the following:

• No increase to VAT
• A R1-trillion investment in infrastructure over the coming 3 years
• No new bailouts for State-Owned Entities
• A national spending review, which must eliminate all unproductive and wasteful spending of public money
• Ending low priority projects, and eliminating government programmes that are not working for South Africans
• A full-scale audit of ghost employees across government, to stop the draining of billions in fraudulent salary payments
• A marked reduction in the additions to the budget baseline which earlier versions of the Budget proposed, meaning R40 billion has been saved

The DA also notes and welcomes that more realistic economic growth forecasts have been used to model revenue in this version of the Budget.

Following this speech by the Minister, the DA will engage in the Parliamentary process to ensure that the Reports and Bills which emerge for voting drive growth and jobs in the economy, and continue to cut the waste in government spending.

Issued by Dr Mark Burke MP - DA Spokesperson on Finance