‘PAY BACK THE MONEY’

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) want Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana to repay the R2.3 million wasted on his ill-fated Budget Speech in February.

The Red Berets MP Omphile Maotwe made the call almost a week after Godongwana and Parliament suffered legal costs after the EFF and the Democratic Alliance (DA) took Godongwana to the Western Cape High Court over his first attempt to increase VAT by 0.5 percent. 

Maotwe, whose party had called for Godongwana to step down due to the Budget delivery fiasco, described the R2.3m, which was spent preparing for the Budget, as wasteful expenditure. 

He explains: “All of this was avoidable had the minister simply listened to the millions of South Africans who rejected the VAT increase and demanded an inflationary adjustment to personal income tax to protect workers from bracket creep.

“We will demand that the minister personally pay for this wasteful expenditure, and that it be deducted from his salary.”

Parliament had made all necessary preparations for the Budget to be delivered on 19 February despite calls from various parties to postpone the speech over disagreements regarding the VAT increase. 

However, on the day of the event, Godongwana took to the podium as expected, but surprised the nation by announcing the postponement of his speech due to political pressure. 

Expenses on the day included printing documents, catering in Cape Town and Pretoria, translation, a sign language interpreter.

Meanwhile, President Cyril Ramaphosa threw his backing behind Godongwana, dismisssing calls to fire his main economist. 

Speaking on the sidelines of the Workers Day rally in Mpumalanga last week, Ramaphosa said: "We have drawn a lot of lessons from all this… This is something that we need to take on board and it doesn’t need to lead to a minister of finance resigning or stepping down, no.

“It should be on all of us to say: 'What are we learning from all of this?’ and what is it that we can do to strengthen the budgetary process,” he said.

Godongwana is anticipated to start fresh budget consultations soon in light of persistent issues like declining revenue, rising expenses, expensive debt, and growing political pressure.

He expected to table the Budget on 21 May.