By Lehlohonolo Lehana’
The Democratic Alliance (DA) leader John Steenhuisen has stated, in no uncertain terms, that his party will not support the revised 2025 Budget.
Steenhuisen said the ball was in the ANC’s court if it wanted the support of its biggest coalition partner to see the budget through parliament.
“We have made it very clear to the ANC in the GNU [government of national unity] that we would not support any increases in taxes unless those increases were temporary and the ANC agreed to a series of major reforms that would grow the economy, produce jobs, reduce waste and bring down taxes within three years,” Steenhuisen said shortly after Godongwana concluded his address to the National Assembly.
He said the ANC had refused to agree to these terms.
Instead, he said, the party insisted on “two likely permanent increases” by hiking VAT by 0.5 percentage points in the new financial year and the same margin in the following year. This will bring VAT to 16% in 2026.
“As a consequence the people of South Africa will be poorer and the future of the government is at risk,” Steenhuisen said, suggesting the impasse could imperil the future of the coalition formed after the May 2025 elections.
“The ANC has still not accepted the outcome of the general election and cannot bring itself to share power.”
Following ANC historic loss in the 2024 National Elections, the party no longer has the numbers.
Since the election, South Africa has been governed by a Government of National Unity (GNU), which comprises the ANC, the DA, the Patriotic Alliance (PA), Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), Good Party, Pan Africanist Congress of Azania, Freedom Front Plus, United Democratic Movement, Al Jama-ah and Rise Mzansi.
The consequence of that failure to work with the former opposition was that the party was prepared to “sacrifice the South African people and risk the economic future of the country”, he said.
“The ANC’s VAT budget does not have a majority and the DA has made it very clear that if it wants us to support a budget it needs to be based on growth and jobs, and we remain open to discussions on how we can make that happen and for compromised to be made, but it is now up to the ANC to get on top of the mess that it has created.”
In a pre-budget media briefing on Wednesday, Godongwana suggested the DA’s ongoing resistance to any tax increase was an attempt to save face after losing coalition battles on health, education and expropriation legislation.
He said party leaders had told him as much in negotiations on the budget last week.
“It is not about the VAT increase, it is about a whole lot of grievances they have,” he said.
“Therefore they want to win something. It is important that we call a spade a spade,” he said, adding that he fully expected the standoff to continue in parliament’s finance committees in coming weeks.
But this was not his immediate concern, added the minister, who on February 19 had to abandon a prepared budget with provision for a 2 percentage point VAT increase after the DA said they would not support it.
“Today I table and walk away.”
Wouter Wessels, the Freedom Front Plus’ national chairperson, said that the party is not in support of any tax increases, including the 0.5 percentage point VAT increase.
“There was no consensus in the GNU on that issue,” said Wessels.
Bosa’s Mmusi Maimane says that, as it stands in its current form, the party would not vote in support of the Budget. As chair of the appropriations committee in Parliament, Maimane says a lot of panelbeating needs to be done on the Budget.
Steve Swart from the ACDP says the party is disappointed with the increase in VAT.
“We understand it’s a very difficult fiscal environment… but we are opposed to a 1% VAT increase which is going to impact the poorest of the poor.”
The Good party’s Secretary-General Brett Herron said the party would vote in support of the Budget.
“We have been saying that there are better ways of increasing the revenue rather than increasing VAT, but we also said we would look at the rumoured 0.5% VAT increase in the context of the entire budget.”
The African National Congress (ANC) welcomed the tabling of the 2025/2026 budget and says it speaks to issues related to social and economic growth.
ANC National Chairperson and Minister of Mineral and Petroleum Resources Gwede Mantashe, “The budget talks to the issues of our people. I heard the party that says, this budget is not pro-growth. And I ask a simple question, how can you spend money on education, health infrastructure, social grants and say it’s against growth.”