By PHAKAMISA MAYABA
The 2025/6 national budget fiscal framework that was postponed in February, delivered in March and looked like it wouldn’t see the light of day this April has finally scraped its way through parliament with a slim 12 vote majority (194 to 182).
The ANC scrounged this support together from the IFP, PA, BOSA, UDM, Rise Mzansi, Al-Jama-ah, PAC and Good Party. The Democratic Alliance (DA), the second biggest party in the GNU, doubled down, vowing it would not to support the budget if it failed to meet the party’s main bones of contention, namely:
1) ‘The procedure of the Finance Committee on 1 April 2025 to consider and approve the Fiscal Framework’; and
2) ‘The constitutionality of certain revenue collection and expenditure measures becoming binding through a speech by the Finance Minister without Parliament having to consider, oversee or approve them’.
When the DA made these reservations known, some were already questioning whether it wasn’t overplaying its hand, thus jeopardising an already fragile GNU. Moreover, some asked whether a liberal party with an affinity with market economics should not be more aware that the conflict over the budget would affect international ratings and investor confidence.
Immediately after the budget was passed, ANC chair Gwede Mantashe stated that the DA had been ‘bombarding’ the ANC about everything except the budget, and that the issues grating the DA were really the Land Expropriation and BELA Acts. He then went on to warn that ‘if the DA walks away from the budget, it is destabilising the country … they are walking out of the GNU themselves’ – and that, nine months into the union, the ANC was ‘psychologically prepared’ for such a walkout.
In a no-holds-barred Facebook video, PA leader Gayton Mckenzie sought to punch holes into the DA’s claims of solidarity with the poor (as demonstrated by its opposition to any VAT hike), and to expose the party’s supposed hypocrisies. When the Budget was first presented to parties, said Mckenzie, the first people to reject it outright were the ANC’s very own minister of electricity, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, and the minister of justice and constitutional development, Mmamoloko Kubayi.
The DA, he said, had actually agreed to the increase on condition that the ANC scrapped its plans for National Health Insurance (NHI), which McKenzie regards as pro-poor. He then listed a host of reasons why the DA remained a privileged, white-dominated party, among others that its treated darker citizens in the Western Cape in an abhorrent fashion.
The back and forth between various parties in and outside of the GNU started in February, when the budget was first scheduled to be tabled. But far more than the budget itself, it was the DA’s future in government that captured the general narrative, with many wondering whether it would continue to tolerate its partners in the GNU.
Last Tuesday, a day before the budget was passed, DA spokesperson Karabo Khakhau dared the ANC to try to pass the budget vote without her party. Speaking on the steps of parliament, she declared: ‘The DA will not sit and work with a budget that we do not believe serves the best interests of South Africans. If push comes to shove and we find ourselves in a position where the GNU is unworkable altogether, where there is no sobriety as far as the direction we are to take, then if we must, we will leave.’
Such threats would not be taken lying down in a GNU environment where parties are perpetually jostling for clout and self-assertion, with the DA needing to demonstrate that it had not gone soft due to a proximity to power, and the ANC trying to assure the ‘class cluster,’ particularly the union members and communists, that the revolution would not be compromised by its power-sharing arrangement.
DA federal chair Helen Zille has been trying to convince anyone who will listen that riding in blue-light convoys has not undermined her party’s commitment to selflessly serve the country, while Presidency spokesperson Vincent Magwenya came out to ask: ‘How do they [the DA] remain part of a government whose budget they opposed? How can DA ministers run programmes on a budget they opposed?’
On Thursday, the DA went to court ‘to get the process that transpired in the parliamentary portfolio committee on finance on 1 April declared null and void’. It also hoped to interdict a VAT increase on 1 May and to have a section of the VAT Act declared unconstitutional because it gave the minister of finance the power to enforce a VAT increase without taking it through parliament and without the need to have the required fiscal framework and other legislation passed in parliament.
ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula reportedly warned parties that attempts to score political points in the course of the contentious budget negotiation process might lead to a ‘reconfigured GNU’. Although he said there would be no culling of parties that did not support the budget, he did say there would be implications – whatever that meant.
A leaked recording of President Cyril Ramaphosa speaking at a closed ANC caucus meeting further revealed the underlying tensions. ‘We are the ones, whether you like it or not, who are leading this GNU and we therefore have a responsibility to demonstrate that leadership,’ he said.
In the wake of all the innuendo, it was the smaller parties whose voices were more measured with no apparent big egos to throw around. Rise Mzansi’s Songezo Zibi only expressed his joy that the days of the ruling party sleep-walking their way through budget processes were over.
BOSA’s Mmusi Maimane emphasised the ‘maturity of saying how do we put South Africans first … A South Africa without a budget is sliding towards a banana republic,’ he declared.
ActionSA’s Athol Trollip advocated for the empowerment of SARS which had exceeded its revenue collection by some R8.8bn in the 2024/5 tax year.
For the IFP’s Velenkosi Hlabisa, whose party is in a government of provincial unity in KwaZulu-Natal, the DA’s conduct may be a tad more unsettling. In the early stages of the GNU, when many argued that the DA had got the short end of the stick in terms of cabinet positions, some supporters accused the party of letting the ANC walk all over them.
Back then the DA had to act quickly, because the ANC was talking with everybody, including the EFF and MKP. An ANC/EFF/MKP coalition had to be stopped even if that meant bending over backwards, conceding a few seats and looking away when disagreeable decisions were taken.
But now, the government has gone on to pass controversial bills like the BELA Act with the DA seemingly unable to do anything about it, despite its position as the second largest member of the GNU. Consequently, many of its followers are unimpressed, and feel the party has lost the fighting spirit it was famous for in opposition.
Sooner or later it had to bare its teeth, make its presence felt. What bigger occasion to do so than to block the budget? Frustrate the ANC, and have investors shaking in their boots. Was that the reason for its conduct, to demonstrate to the ANC that it needed the DA just as much the DA needed them? Are DA’s grievances legitimate or is it all just politicking 101 – trying to twist the other guy’s arm into making concession he would not otherwise give you?
Whatever the motives, one thing seems abundantly clear – whatever cloud the DA has walked under has only grown bigger and darker. At a time when Trump has the country in his crosshairs, a united front would at least create the impression of a country that still has its house in order.
It would send a strong message to those who would wish to see the GNU collapse that despite the differences and uncertainty, America is too far away, and they have neither pap nor biltong. And, that, if for nothing else, we are prepared to talk and work together just so that we can ensure those simple delicacies to all South Africans.
FEATURED IMAGE: DA chairperson Helen Zille addresses the media outside the Cape High Court after the filing of court papers challenging the passing of the ANC’s ‘unlawful Budget Fiscal Framework’. She is flanked by DA finance spokesperson Dr Mark Burke and national spokesperson Karabo Khakhau. DA on Twitter.
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This is an edited version of an article that first appeared on Phakamisa Mayaba’s website, eParkeni. Used with permission.