DA says Godongwana has delivered a budget likely to receive its backing

CAPE TOWN - In the unprecedented situation of having to draft three budgets for a single financial year, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana may have just succeeded on Wednesday in winning over the Government of National Unity’s (GNU) second biggest party.

Tabling the third iteration of the budget 2025 in Parliament on Wednesday, Godongwana said this budget was an attempt to meet shared goals of redistribution, redress and structural transformation.

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In response, the Democratic Alliance (DA), which took the minister to court last month over a proposed value-added tax (VAT) increase, said Godongwana has delivered a national budget, this time around, that could receive its backing when it comes down to the vote.

Godongwana says his latest budget, which aims to promote fiscal sustainability, is still a work in progress.

But he believes this is a goal shared across the political divide.

"Negotiation, debate and compromise, as we have seen unfold over the last weeks, has been a necessary, if sometimes painful, investment in the productivity of future government reform in the new political environment."

Godongwana says recent events have shown the country that political debate is part of any vibrant democracy, and that this debate is not about differences in goals, but about how they are to be achieved.

He says that through this process, political partners have gained a deeper appreciation of each other’s policy positions and the trade-offs each is willing to make.

With a VAT increase off the table, the alternative has now been to increase the fuel levy after a three-year freeze, which some parties will view as the lesser of the tax evils.