South African parliament passes budget framework

South Africa's lower house of parliament passed the budget's fiscal framework and revenue proposals on Wednesday.
The budget of Africa's biggest economy has been caught up in political wrangling for months. It has been reworked twice because of disagreements in the ruling coalition over plans to raise value-added tax.
A majority of 268 lawmakers, including from the two biggest political parties the African National Congress (ANC) and the Democratic Alliance (DA), voted in favour of the fiscal framework and revenue proposals, while 88 voted against and 2 abstained.
The ANC and the DA had been at loggerheads over the budget until the finance minister backtracked on a plan to raise value-added tax.
The two parties have more than half of the lawmakers in the 400-member National Assembly.
(Reporting by Alessandro Parodi and Sfundo Parakozov; Editing by Alexander Winning)

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