EFF, MKP reject budget, DA offers ‘cautious support’

Speaking on the sidelines of the minister’s budget speech in Cape Town on Wednesday afternoon, Malema said the budget failed to deliver a believable plan to grow the economy and create much-needed jobs.

South Africa’s unemployment rate increased to 32.9% in the first quarter of 2025 from 31.9% in the fourth quarter of 2024, which means 8.2 million South Africans are jobless.

The red berets’ leader described the budget as anti-poor, adding that it failed to address service delivery needs.

“This is an austerity budget…if you check, in the main, it's education, health, police, and other services that are directed to our people. They said they were going to increase the list of zero-rated [foods], but now they have come back and said they are no longer increasing the list of zero-rated items. So, clearly this is not a pro-poor budget, and as a result, we don’t support it.”

Malema’s sentiments were echoed by uMkhonto weSizwe Party’s Nlhamulo Ndlela.

He says, despite the scrapping of the proposed value-added tax increase from 15% to 15.5%, the current budget continues to punish the poor.

“There is nothing that is being delivered by this minister; that’s why we submitted a motion that this minister be removed, because South Africa can no longer continue to have this. There are no jobs in this country, there’s no productivity, there’s no investment – we’re still sitting with an austerity-based budget. How do you expect to grow your GDP, if you're continuously cutting the budget?”

Meanwhile, the Democratic Alliance says it's cautiously supporting the current budget.

The second biggest party in the government of national unity pushed back against the proposed VAT hike – ultimately dragging the Minister to court.

The party welcomed the R1 trillion investment in infrastructure over the next three years, no bail outs for state-owned entities, and the national spending review, among others.

“We have an expenditure problem in this country, so we’re excited to hear that the minister has now announced a spending review that will find inefficiencies in the budget, and as we identify that inefficiencies, then add them back into the budget so that these provisional allocations can increase even further.”

“We need an aggressive focus on infrastructure investment, and some of that was announced now, and we’re hopeful that as we find inefficiencies and add that back into the budget, we can invest more in infrastructure and frontline services,” said DA finance spokesperson Mark Burke.