South African budget law passes after months of delay

South Africa's parliament passed the budget's fiscal framework and revenue proposals on Wednesday, 11 June 2025 removing a key pillar of uncertainty for investors in Africa's biggest economy.
The budget has been caught up in political wrangling for months and had to be reworked twice because of disagreements in the coalition government over plans to raise value-added tax (Vat).
A majority of 268 lawmakers in the lower house, including from the two biggest political parties, the African National Congress (ANC) and the Democratic Alliance (DA), voted in favour of the budget's overall spending limits and revenue-generating measures.
Eighty-eight lawmakers voted against and two abstained.
South Africa had not experienced contested budget votes in the post-apartheid era until this year, as the ANC always had a parliamentary majority which made the votes a formality.
It lost that majority in an election last year, entering a coalition with the DA and other smaller parties.
The ANC and the DA had been at loggerheads over this budget until the finance minister backtracked on the proposed VAT hike. The two parties have more than half of the lawmakers in the 400-member National Assembly.
Before Wednesday's vote, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana told members of parliament that the tax increases that remained in his third budget version were aimed at funding social services like health and education.
The DA said it supported the fiscal framework partly because it focused on infrastructure and contained spending reforms.
Godongwana has tried to strike a balance between maintaining spending on frontline services and stabilising public debt levels, a worry for credit-rating agencies.
Parliament still has to approve two other pieces of legislation, the division of revenue bill and the appropriation bill, for the budget to be entirely passed.
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