Mboweni bowed to private sector - Cosatu
The Congress of South African Trade Union (Cosatu) has described government's fiscal priorities for the next year as “disappointing”.
Finance Minister Tito Mboweni tabled the 2020/21 budget in the National Assembly on Wednesday.
Mboweni got a few rounds of applause in the chambers when he told MPs that he had walked a tight rope in an attempt to spare South Africans some change.
He announced an increase of 5 percent to the personal income tax bracket while corporate income tax rate was lowered to 27 percent.
But Cosatu spokesperson Sizwe Pamla says the budget favoured the private sector at the expense of workers.
“It’s a very disappointing budget, a budget that can only be delivered by people who are not familiar with the reality on the ground of many South Africans who live life through survival.
“Not only is it a continuation of the austerity framework but when it comes to policy intervention there’s very little that has been attempted to fix the systems inside there.”
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He adds government has failed to provide the rationale for a drop in corporate tax.
“We should have been told since the corporate tax was adjusted in 2012 from 34 to 28, where is the evidence that these tax incentives work?
“This is really a charitable donation by government to the private sector,” says Pamla.
He believes it wasn’t politics that swayed the budget but corporate forces.
“The budget wasn’t really about political pressure because the budget is supposed to be about the pressure coming from the reality on the ground. This budget was supposed to speak to the pressure that comes from poor people. He has failed poor people,” he adds.
“We can only just say he actually bowed to the corporate pressure because the private sector is the only that benefited out of this.”
Listen to Pamla below:
