Let’s hope Godongwana’s second attempt passes GNU test
Minister of Finance Enoch Godongwana took a proper bite at the cherry with his presentation to the joint houses of parliament on Wednesday.
Take 2 followed the aborted first attempt in February, when the budget speech was cancelled at the 11th hour because of disagreements between parties in the government of national unity (GNU) and within Godongwana’s party, the ANC.
Now the budget has been proposed to parliament, whose task now it is to pass or return it for whatever reason.
The country has since 1994 until the last elections been run by the majority party, the ANC, which ruled the roost with largely unfettered power since it had the numbers to get its way in parliament. It seemed the norm to many, so much so that what the finance minister presented was a slam dunk.
Then voilà, May 29, 2024 happened and we are witnesses to history in the making almost at every turn. South Africa is sailing in uncharted, yet stormy, waters; add to the mix the presence of icebergs in every direction the eye turns.
No doubt there are deadlock-breaking mechanisms built by visionary authors into the so-called best constitution in the world to see the nation, fractious as it is, emerge scathed or otherwise but ready to tackle what the future has in store for us. As fate would have it, the man who steered the constitution-making process for two years after the liberatory elections of 1994, Cyril Ramaphosa, is now president when the new order is going through a testing period.
Ramaphosa’s party is traipsing in treacherous terrain, where every step might spell disaster and his GNU falling apart at the flimsy seams holding it together. Not making matters any easier is having a marriage partner ready to cry wolf at imaginary scares while singing from a hymn book entirely opposed to the songs of liberation.
The DA seized the moment quickly when the Budget Speech was postponed in February and declared its opposition to the proposed two percentage points hike in value-added tax. As it turns out, as mentioned above, there was opposition to the increase even in the ANC because of the ravages it would visit on the poor.
The DA may have draped itself in borrowed robes but it has basked in the antiVAT hike narrative, and why not?
The budget is a double-edged sword bound to slay delicate flesh whichever direction it is swayed and the lesson Luthuli House, used to bulldozing its way for so long, will have to learn, and learn fast. There are many other such pitfalls in this GNU path the party of Mandela, Tambo and Mbeki has chosen.
Only time will tell if the embrace of the old enemy came with a kiss of death. The irony is, potential natural ideological allies are sitting outside the tent, watching, not entirely haplessly. There can’t be much separating the ANC, MK Party and EFF. They were all cut from the same cloth, and in the case of the EFF, it was born of a revolution eating its own children.
We hope the interests of South Africa will be considered by all concerned when the time comes eventually to decide the fate of Godongwana’s second attempt at Budget 2025/26. Nkosi sikelela…
