The 2025 national budget is gearing up to be South Africa’s most contentious, possibly ever.
That budgets are now on the table of contestation is undeniably good: this dormant feature of our democracy can at last be exercised. But this new dimension in our politics must not be without tangible consequence and given what has happened over the past three months, heads must roll.
Specifically that of the finance minister, Enoch Godongwana.
What happened?
On 19 February, for the first time in recent memory, the budget speech was postponed, seemingly primarily due to Democratic Alliance (DA) opposition to the proposed two percentage point VAT hike. This was the Government of National Unity (GNU) – finally! – working as intended.
Nonetheless, on 12 March, Godongwana delivered a budget speech that still included a VAT hike, despite continued protestations from Cabinet.
Appropriately, on April Fool’s Day, the parliamentary finance committee adopted the fiscal framework, primarily on the back of an ASA (as they prefer to be called) misunderstanding of the difference between “amendments” and “recommendations.”
The next day, 2 April, the National Assembly adopted the budget with a 194-182 split – a very close vote in the context of South African parliamentary politics.
While only the DA, uMkhonto we Sizwe, Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), Freedom Front Plus, African Christian Democratic Party, United Africans Transformation, and African Transformation Movement voted against the budget, after the vote the African National Congress (ANC), ASA, Rise Mzansi, and Build One South Africa (BOSA) have sought to gaslight South Africans into believing that they, too, oppose the budget as adopted.
We are being told, in other words, that the people who imposed this anti-poor, anti-growth, statist budget on our struggling economy, are the people must dead-set against it. 2+2=5 again, therefore.
After the budget’s adoption, various politicos but specifically Godongwana have repeatedly reiterated that there is “no alternative” to tax increases.
Enoch Godongwana was once praised by economists as “safe,” “stable,” and “sensible” and as “pragmatic and market-friendly” by Carol Paton. Blake Neethling of Daily Investor reports that Godongwana has a “reputation as one of South Africa’s most market-friendly Finance Ministers.”
It is time to resign in disgrace. And while there are many more, three reasons stand out:
An anti-poor, anti-growth budget
Godongwana is likely the one person in the country who has the most up-to-date information about the state of South Africa’s economy and state finances. He snaps his fingers, and a legion of economic researchers give him the latest numbers and projections. For instance, he knows that:
- There is a 32.1% official unemployment rate, representing 8 million people. The expanded rate sits at 41.9% – 10.4 million individuals;
- There were 28 million people on social welfare grants in 2024, up from 27.3 million in 2023;
- There are only 7.4 million individuals paying personal income tax (every taxpayer supports four grant recipients);
- Since 2021, South Africa’s average real GDP “growth” has been some 1.2%.
Despite this, Godongwana tabled a budget that is decisively anti-growth and anti-poor. This budget includes an allocation of R23.4 billion over three years to fund a 5.5% increase for state employees.
All South Africans, but particularly those with little disposal income – a growing number of people – will feel the pinch of VAT and unadjusted income tax brackets, so that the disastrously incompetent, largely corrupt army of civil servants can get a raise for a job well done.
It is bewildering that a budget like this could ever see the light of day under these circumstances. It is an insult.
As the steward of state finances, Godongwana should have known better than to commission this budget from his policy team and certainly should never have countenanced it.
And he knew that this budget would be carried through without a democratic mandate.
In court, the EFF’s lawyer, Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, accused Godongwana of “deceiving” ASA about how the VAT increase could be undone before 1 May.
I do not quite buy this line of reasoning: ASA is a party of big boys who can all go to the loo without supervision. Their wilful ignorance is, ultimately, their own fault.
However, on a purely ethical note, that Godongwana, who has sought to portray himself as a man of integrity to the South African public, sought to get his budget adopted on the back of political illiteracy – not only by ASA, but by Rise Mzansi and BOSA as well – speaks volumes.
Under sober and normal circumstances, the finance minister knows that he would have been laughed out of Parliament, and he exploited the fact that our parliamentarians are of an exceptionally low calibre to get what he wants. This is not the conduct of an ethical financial steward.
Brazen public lies
Godongwana has continuously (joined by the President) told the press media that there is “no alternative” to this insult of a budget.
This is simply a lie that – again – Godongwana knows the uninformed will believe.
It is often thought that National Treasury cannot dictate spending activity to the rest of government. But this dresses a grain of truth in a blanket of implicit falsehood.
If aliens were to descend from the heavens and ask, in our system of government, which state organ is most appropriately situated to indicate the hard truths of state finances to the Cabinet, the only answer would be Treasury.
Treasury can, should, and certainly must, tell ministers who wish to spend lavishly, that there is no money, no more money can appropriately be raised, and that they must rein in their spending. The answer to any notion of increasing the public sector wage bill can only ever be “no” until the country’s economic growth rates go up spectacularly.
But Godongwana, for ideological reasons or reasons of cowardice, does not want to be the bearer of bad news to his Cabinet colleagues. So, he chooses to be the bearer of existentially dreadful news for the country, that amount to lies.
The list of alternatives to VAT is dizzying – most prominently, slashing the state workforce to the tune of tens if not hundreds of thousands of staff – but we need not go through them item by item, because a basically 1:1 solution presents itself:
The VAT increase is anticipated to bring in between R13 billion and R15.5 billion for government annually.
The total budget allocation for the Department of Sports, Arts, and Culture, is some R12.5 billion.
Bob’s your uncle: an alternative materialises.
The abolition of the Department of Sports, Arts, and Culture would account for most of the money the VAT increase would generate. This simple exercise has the added benefit of being constitutionally compliant, given that there is (obviously!) no constitutional requirement for such a department to exist.
It would also go a long way to indicating that government respects that it is a servant of the people, and that it would sacrifice its own items of luxurious spending before it expects ordinary South Africans to cut into their savings or food, housing, or education funds.
The luxury of a relatively poor country spending so lavishly on intimate social and cultural affairs that would not only continue to exist without state interference, but thrive, is an insult to taxpayers and the poor who must subsidise such luxuries.
Godongwana should choose something more complicated to lie about. This is too easy.
Constitutional convention
Most glaring of all, however, is Godongwana’s circumvention of established (and relatively ironclad) constitutional convention.
While the Minister of Finance does have the formal constitutional authority to table the budget, and as a Member of Parliament to table bills, the established constitutional convention in South Africa’s tradition of government has been for members of the executive to receive Cabinet approval before they take any bill – and certainly the national budget – to Parliament.
Under the terms agreed to by the various parties comprising the GNU in June 2024, any government policy decision has to be approved in Cabinet by sufficient consensus. Sufficient consensus, in the current GNU configuration, would have required the approval of at least the DA’s representatives as well as the ANC’s.
By skirting around Cabinet and tabling the budget and bills unilaterally, Godongwana has done nothing illegal but has assaulted one of the most entrenched constitutional conventions in our politics. (Cabinet votes are confidential: if it turns out that the DA did approve the budget at that stage, many more people will need to resign in disgrace.)
Godongwana did all this with the tacit approval of the man formally, though never in substance, our president, Cyril Ramaphosa.
Ideally, Ramaphosa and his whole government should fall for this travesty.
Parliament should then, at least, choose a new head of government, but ideally call a fresh election. Believe it or not, early elections are not uncommon in the real world, but South Africa must always be the exception when it comes to preserving the dominance of the ANC.
Neither of these things will happen, of course.
But at the very least, Enoch Godongwana, the man – if he has any integrity left – must vacate his position without undue delay.
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
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