{"id":827929,"date":"2025-06-12T08:38:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-12T06:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=827929"},"modified":"2025-06-12T08:38:15","modified_gmt":"2025-06-12T06:38:15","slug":"budget-3-0-gets-the-nod","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/budget-speech\/827929\/budget-3-0-gets-the-nod\/","title":{"rendered":"Budget 3.0 gets the nod"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>South Africa\u2019s National Assembly approved the Treasury\u2019s fiscal framework, bringing the adoption of the annual budget a step closer after months of wrangling over tax increases.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The framework, which establishes economic policy, revenue projections and limits on government spending, was approved by 268 votes to 88, with two abstentions, at a sitting in Cape Town on Wednesday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The legislature is due to process other laws that underpin the budget by the end of next month. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe have had a painful journey to arrive to this date where the fiscal framework is being approved,\u201d Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana told lawmakers ahead of the vote. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cFrom the Treasury perspective we have drawn a number of lessons\u201d about how the budgeting process should be handled in future, he said. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Godongwana initially proposed raising value-added tax by\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2025-02-19\/highlights-of-south-africa-s-budget-that-stalled-on-tax-hike\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">two percentage points<\/a>\u00a0in his first iteration of the budget in February, but\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2025-03-12\/highlights-of-south-african-finance-minister-s-2025-budget\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">halved<\/a>\u00a0the increase three weeks later after encountering political opposition from within the nation\u2019s 10-member governing coalition. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2025-05-21\/highlights-of-south-african-finance-minister-s-reworked-budget\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">scrapped<\/a>\u00a0it completely in the latest plan unveiled last month, and proposed cutting spending and increasing fuel levies instead.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Democratic Alliance, the second-largest member of the administration that was established almost a year ago after elections failed to produce an outright winner, led the campaign against the VAT hike and contested it in court.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The tussle over the budget strained the relations within the so-called government of national unity, and its resolution has eased concern among investors and helped fuel a rally in the rand and the nation\u2019s bonds.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>South Africa\u2019s National Assembly approved the Treasury\u2019s fiscal framework, bringing the adoption of the annual budget a step closer after months of wrangling over tax increases.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":812091,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13716],"tags":[21583],"class_list":["post-827929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-budget-speech","tag-budget-2025"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=827929"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":827930,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827929\/revisions\/827930"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/812091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=827929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=827929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=827929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}