Parliaments Finance Cluster Says Delayed Budget Adds Pressure

Parliaments Finance Cluster says the postponement of the tabling of the budget last month means that they will work under extreme pressure in processing the upcoming budget due to limited time.

Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana is expected to table the delayed budget on Wednesday. It was postponed after disagreements in the Cabinet to increase VAT from 15 to 17 percent.

Its going to compromise lots of processes and we dont want democracy to be compromised. We hope that next time the Cabinet should do things properly and not dump problems to Parliament," says the Chairperson Standing Committee on Finance, Dr. Joe Maswanganyi.

Some say government must look into exorbitant lease contracts that cost the fiscus billions of rands.

"We are wasting money, we really are wasting money the government cannot pay 45 percent more for office space than a company. We cant do that and yet we talk about where money is going to come from and so on, we dont talk about how to stop wasting money and Parliaments job is to reckon with those issues and hold the executive accountable to the last point. I want to say is that members say what is Treasury or the AG doing, nonsense. Its Cabinets job, its every ministers job to do that work," says Chairperson of Standing Committee on Public Accounts, Songezo Zibi.