Court battle under way over VAT hike: DA's stance on fiscal policy
In a move to challenge what it describes as an unjust and harmful tax policy, the Democratic Alliance (DA) is on Tuesday seeking the court to interdict the proposed 0.5% increase in Value Added Tax (VAT), effective May 1, 2025.
The party argued that the hike would impose additional hardship on ordinary South Africans, particularly the poor and vulnerable, and that the government's decision was made without adequate consultation or consideration of its broader economic impact.
Video Player is loading.
Play Video
Play
Unmute
Current Time
0:00
/
Duration
-:-
Loaded :
0%
Stream Type LIVE
Seek to live, currently behind live
LIVE
Remaining Time
-
0:00
This is a modal window.
Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window.
Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan
Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan
Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan
Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque
Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps
Reset
restore all settings to the default values Done
Close Modal Dialog
End of dialog window.
Advertisement
Next
Stay
Close ✕
Burke's remarks highlighted the detrimental effects the increase could have: pushing more South Africans into poverty, reducing household disposable income, and stifling economic recovery.
In his statement, Burke criticised the government's approach, stating: "We oppose a debilitating and bulldozing budget that will lead to further poverty by taking money from people who can't afford it and giving it to people who don't know how to use it."
He also warned that the VAT hike would deepen youth despair, depress property values, and make daily transportation more expensive.
He further clarified the DA's position on fiscal policy: "We are not opposed to a workable budget. We won't oppose a budget for its sake and under all circumstances. We would support a budget focused on infrastructure investment and no new bailouts."
However, Burke lamented that the ANC government had "steamrolled" a "tone-deaf" budget against the party's advice and collaborative input.
He emphasised that legal action was a last resort but necessary to protect ordinary citizens from policies that threatened their livelihoods.
The Broader Context
The DA's legal challenge comes amid rising public concern about the government's fiscal policies. The party's decision to go to court reflects a broader frustration with the ANC's approach, which many see as out of touch with the economic realities faced by South Africans.
Burke concluded his remarks with a poetic call for listening and understanding:
*"How many ears must one party have
Before they can hear people cry?
How many times can you turn your head
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Maverick
6 hours ago
- Daily Maverick
Drama, deals, disregard – how another 12,000 Nelson Mandela Bay ratepayers were denied a capital budget
In this second report in our series on wards in Nelson Mandela Bay receiving a zero capital budget, Ward 39 is a large residential area that includes suburbs and the peri-urban area of Theescombe. Some of its residents pay the highest rates in Nelson Mandela Bay, and yet its capital budget was reduced from R1.5m to nothing. When Nelson Mandela Bay Executive Mayor Babalwa Lobishe joined the residents of Ward 39 at their integrated development plan meeting, she presented them with the 2024 budget instead of the 2025/6 budget. In that 2024 budget, the ward had a capital budget of R1.5-million – but ward councillor Margaret de Andrade and her ward committee soon pointed out to Lobishe that she was presenting the wrong budget. 'I told her there is a zero under capital budget in the new budget,' De Andrade said. 'We received nothing but R100,000 for a humanitarian fund that is almost impossible to access.' The R1.5-millon referred to by Lobishe had, in any event, already been spent on resurfacing part of a crucial road, adding traffic calming measures and fixing a busy sidewalk. This is the second ward in the metro, with mostly ratepaying residents, whose budget has been cut to zero. Ward 8, covering Lorraine, a densely populated area, also had its capital budget reduced to zero. The Nelson Mandela Bay council was to meet for the third time on Thursday to try to pass the budget. But according to a letter seen by Daily Maverick, even the National Treasury has become worried about the numbers – the metro's collection rate is at 73% and the budget is based on a collection rate of 76%. This means that there is a shortfall of R1.3-billion. Grants totalling R900-million from the national government that could have been used for capital projects were returned unspent in the past two financial years. For the current financial year, the metro has only spent 38% of its R1.9-billion capital expenditure budget. While the four wards that received zero capital budgets are wards with Democratic Alliance councillors, De Andrade, who sits on the budget and treasury subcommittee, said many ANC councillors were unhappy with the budgets for their wards. 'Hugely disrespectful' De Andrade, who has been a councillor for 19 years, said she had not had to deal with a zero capital budget before. Water leaks, sewage spills and street lights can still, in theory, be fixed under operational budgets for the metro. 'I want a million rand,' she said. 'We have a track record of looking after a capital budget of a million rand. You can't give me zero.' She said they had asked for specific evidence for this decision. She said over the medium term, the situation didn't look much better as the ward would receive only R500,000 for the next financial year. 'That is just stupid. I can tar maybe 500 metres with it.' Below are the projects the ward presented to the municipality to be taken into account for the Integrated Development Plan and the budget: Walker Drive needs to be resurfaced as it is riddled with potholes; Riverstone Road needs an upgrade and drainage; there needs to be a taxi rank constructed for Kragga Kamma; the railing of the low water bridge in the Kabega Road dip should be fixed. Parts of the ward are in urgent need of high mast lights. A substation needs fencing. Kragga Kamma Road, which carries around 5,000 vehicles a day, needs pedestrian walkways and cycle tracks to cut down on accidents. Walker Drive needs a stormwater upgrade, and several gravel roads in the peri-urban areas need tarring. Trees growing into powerlines have to be cut and old electrical infrastructure must be replaced. The ward also has illegal cables running over busy Kragga Kamma Road that often set the area on fire. De Andrade also asked for this to be dealt with. 'I think our ratepayers accept that 80% of their rates go to other areas, but it is hugely disrespectful to give us no capital budget,' De Andrade said. She said that after receiving advice from a city official, she managed to get R500,000 in unspent money to cut trees before the end of the financial year. She said that as she had her meetings about the zero capital budget, acting city manager Ted Pillay had told her to agree to this budget so that 'they can get it through' as they needed the new electricity tariffs to be approved — they would then adjust the budget in August. The electricity department projects a loss of R1.3-billion for the coming year and needs rates to ensure that it doesn't default on its payments to Eskom. In the current financial year, the municipality has already spent R600-million more on purchasing electricity than it received from sales to the public. 'But I said no,' De Andrade said. 'Councillors are delaying the approval of the budget because we want to see the capital budgets in print before we vote.' Municipality's response Municipal director of communications Sithembiso Soyaya said a mistake had been made in presenting the wrong budget to Ward 39 residents. 'During engagements in Ward 39, it was brought to the municipality's attention that the previous year's budget figures may have been presented during an initial consultation session. This matter is currently under internal review, within the relevant framework, and corrective measures will be implemented to ensure such administrative oversights do not recur. 'The concern has been noted and considered during the revision of the draft budget, and the updated, corrected figures should be reflected in the final 2025/26 budget being presented to Council on Thursday. 'The municipality remains committed to ensuring that communities receive accurate, up-to-date information in all budget consultation processes. 'On the response by the city manager, we wish to clarify the context and emphasise that any amendment to the municipal budget must follow a legally compliant process, as provided for in Section 28 of the Municipal Finance Management Act, which allows for a formal adjustment budget to be adopted by council under defined conditions. 'No informal or arbitrary changes can be made outside this regulated process. The municipality upholds these legislative requirements and remains committed to full compliance with the law.
Daily Maverick
6 hours ago
- Daily Maverick
Minister Nkabane fails to submit names of panel that oversaw controversial Seta board appointments
Higher Education Minister Dr Nobuhle Nkabane has missed a deadline to reveal the names of an independent panel that endorsed the appointments of politically connected Seta board chairpersons. Higher Education Minister Nobuhle Nkabane was asked to submit the names of the Sector Education and Training Authority (Seta) Board Chairpersons Selection and Evaluation Panel to the parliamentary committee on higher education on 11 June 2025. The five-member panel was responsible for the selection process in the appointment of 21 chairpersons for Seta boards in May. The committee requested the names of the panel after it was discovered that ANC politicians had been selected, including Gwede Mantashe's son, Buyambo Mantashe, who has been appointed chairperson of the Manufacturing, Engineering and Related Services Seta. Also named are former KwaZulu-Natal premier Nomusa Dube-Ncube and ex-ANC KZN provincial deputy chairperson Mike Mabuyakhulu. In a letter seen by Daily Maverick, written by Nkabane to the chairperson of the parliamentary committee Tebogo Letsie, Nkabane has requested an extension of the deadline to 30 June 2025. According to Nkabane, she was concerned over whether the disclosure of the names and details would violate the panellists' rights to privacy. However, she has now recognised that she is legally permitted to disclose the panellists' details. 'I remain concerned that the disclosure may invite unwarranted or unwanted public vitriol against the panel members, as I have experienced… I have written to each of the members of the selection and evaluation panel and advised them of my intention to comply with the portfolio committee's request,' said Nkabane. Nkabane's response comes after members of the committee and the public raised concerns over the non-disclosure of the selection panellists' names. The Seta board appointments caused chaos at the committee meeting on 14 May and on 2 June 2025, even leading to the eviction of the EFF's Sihle Lonzi after he questioned Higher Education Department Director-General Dr Nkosinathi Sishi. Lonzi called the Seta board appointments 'corrupt'. Nkabane had previously said the reversal was solely due to public reaction and that the appointing process had been flawless. 'We saw what was trending on social media… I took it upon myself as a responsible citizen to say, 'Listen, I could pick [up] that among the issues were the recommended candidates to serve as chairs; they are viewed as more politically associated with some of the politicians within the movement, and I decided I must take the concerns of the public,' said Nkabane. 'Time's up' – deadline extension frustrates MPs Members of the parliamentary committee voiced their frustrations about the minister's request for a deadline extension. Karabo Khakhau (DA) said this was completely unacceptable. 'Minister Nkabane needs no permission to furnish the committee with those names if they exist. Secondly, the minister has had more than enough time to receive permission from the panel to reveal their names. The minister's time is now up. There is no more room to manoeuvre. The committee has exhausted its generosity. Minister Nkabane cannot run away from being held accountable for her attempted politicisation of the appointment of the Seta board chairpersons. The chickens are coming home to roost,' said Khakhau. Higher education committee chairperson Tebogo Letsie also expressed disappointment at Nkabane's extension request. 'We … felt we had given her enough time to comply. The committee will meet on Wednesday, 18 June, to pave the way forward on what to do,' said Letsie. Ramaphosa seeks answers Last week, President Cyril Ramaphosa requested that Nkabane report to him on the matter. Nkabane drew public ire after videos of her at the meeting chewing gum and being dismissive of MPs' questioning went viral. After the meeting, the minister took to X to explain herself. 'Claims that I was rude or disrespectful are false and based on misleading clips taken out of context. I did not disrupt the process,' she wrote.
Daily Maverick
6 hours ago
- Daily Maverick
Letter to Mahlamba Ndlopfu — Now is the winter of our discontent
Ah, Chief Dwasaho! I write as one frozen stiff by the icy breath of our weather this week, which was worsened, not by cold fronts and damaging winds, but by the harsh realities revealed in the Statistics South Africa reports. According to the latest figures from StatsSA, in the first quarter of 2025 our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew by a maiden 0.1% — yes, not a typo, not a rounding error, just a whisper of movement above economic rigor mortis. When annualised, that translates into a lukewarm 0.8% year-on-year. The only warm patch came courtesy of agriculture, surging by 15.8%; clearly, cabbages are doing more heavy lifting than the Cabinet. If agriculture were a currency, I'd wager it has flourished under the recent sunshine of Baas John Steenhuisen's melanin-light leadership — though perhaps all it ever needed was a little brown boost in the soil and the soul. So, my dearest leader, if our economy was the weather, it would be a bone-chilling fog bank rolling in from all sides with no visibility, no direction, and certainly no sunshine in sight. It is a climate where only those with thick skin and thicker wallets survive. For the rest of us? It's winter without end, comrade. A cold front of missed opportunities blows through a nation still waiting for the warmth of the fundamental economic reforms promised in 2018, when I was 10kg lighter, with not a strand of grey hair. The need for immediate action is NOW. Frostbitten As I dived, nose first, into the frostbitten pages of StatsSA's latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey, I emerged gasping, winded not from the effort but from the sheer chill of our labour market's trajectory. The official unemployment rate rose to a bone-cracking 32.9% in the first quarter of 2025, up from 31.9% in the last quarter of 2024. That's 8.2 million South Africans left out in the economic cold — up from 7.9 million — huddled around the dwindling embers of hope, awaiting a job to fall like manna from heaven. The expanded unemployment rate, which includes discouraged jobseekers (like me), swelled to a stormy 43.1%. That's not an economy with 'low clouds' — that's a Category 5 unemployment cyclone bearing down on the nation, with little shelter in sight. Gauteng added a gentle breeze of +9,000 jobs, while the Western Cape enjoyed a sunny spell with +49,000, and the Free State contributed a faint +4,000, a drizzle of progress. But for the rest of Mzansi? It's all nightmarish: KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape, North West, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, and the Northern Cape all reported job losses, a frostbite of opportunity. The stormfront hit the rural provinces hardest, where economic activity retreats like sunlight in mid-July. Perhaps everyone has seized on the National Prosecuting Authority's snail-pace strategy to prosecute thieves in Gucci suits. But for minors, we hear the same story: to use KZN police commissioner Lieutenant- General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi's chilling words: 'Unfortunately, there's an engagement inside,' and the suspect was fatally wounded. Economic Richter scale Our economy is wobbling through yet another tremor, an earthquake clocking in at 5.6 on the economic Richter scale, just as the country flounders without a discernible compass. The much-vaunted National Development Plan (NDP) 2030 remains a glossy wish list; the New Growth Path, launched by Ebrahim Patel in 2010, has long fizzled into policy vapour. And let's not even mention the Economic Reconstruction and Recovery Plan (ERRP) of 2020, a blueprint that has yet to see the light of day since its launch. We've dwelt in this winter of our discontent since 2009 — that's 16 years of frost, shivering in the dark with no economic fruit in sight. My leader, it has been a year since the markets heaved a collective sigh of relief following the cobbling together of the Government of National Unity (GNU). Investor confidence flickered, the rand strengthened, and — momentarily — the economic barometer pointed north. But alas, no fresh economic policy has emerged from the fog. Meanwhile, our industrial strategy (now a series of industry-specific master plans) continues to clash with the Treasury's fiscally (im)prudent stance, and the South African Reserve Bank remains fixated on inflation targeting, wielding high interest rates like a blunt snow shovel. It's a jigsaw of clashing fronts, a high-pressure system of indecision, the crosswinds of ideology holding the country to ransom. In meteorological terms, this isn't merely a cold snap; it's a prolonged polar vortex: policies fracturing like ice sheets, implementation frozen stiff, and gale-force confusion sweeping through every sector. And the question that keeps me awake in the long economic night is this: how do we find warmth when we can't even agree on the thermostat? The economy is the heartbeat of any democracy — and, dare I say, the very essence of the state. Bleeding jobs Yet it remains locked in a low-growth, high-interest-rate trap, bleeding jobs with every tick of the GDP clock. Are we not merely hoping the thermometer will fix the fever while the patient quietly slips into shock? While I paced the lounge on a pallid Tuesday evening, contemplating ways to become an economic wizard, the anthracite fire sputtered with dirty yet oddly soothing warmth. Suddenly, like a frost front through a broken window, a major newsbreak occurred: you, my leader, in all your infinite incandescence, have appointed an Eminent Persons Group. Wait for it: 'To guide and champion the National Dialogue.' Not to draft, not to deliver — to guide, like torchbearers in a tunnel with no exit. Moreover, we're not stopping at one symbolic gathering. As Head of State, you are summoning all and sundry to a full-blown National Convention. One can only hope the guest list excludes Comrade Jimmy Manyi and his former boss uBaba kaDuduzane lest this turns into a Radical Economic Transformation revival festival. The first sitting of this National Convention, scheduled for 15 August 2025, will set the agenda. Imagine! The second, pencilled in for January 2026, promises to 'reinforce our shared values and adopt a common vision and programme of action'. What does it mean? In short, the Eminent Persons Group is like a cocktail: a retired judge mixing with a former apartheid politician, a peace activist, a Grand Slam champion, a rocket scientist, a mountain climber, unionists, and the odd former businessperson or two — all now expected to guide and champion our National Dialogue. In weather terms, it's akin to entrusting the thermostat to a room full of thermometers — none of which agree on Fahrenheit or Celsius. Yet this isn't intended to draft an agenda — no, not at all. If it doesn't set the agenda, what does it mean to 'guide and champion'? Jobs are haemorrhaging, growth is nonexistent, and interest rates freeze whatever sizzle the economy once had. Budgetary greenhouse Meanwhile, on another planet entirely, we have assembled a budgetary greenhouse stocked with 400 members of the National Assembly, 90 from the National Council of Provinces, and a bloated Cabinet of 75 ministers and deputies. Yet the national agenda now rests on the shoulders of a hodgepodge of rugby captains, soccer coaches, ex-judges, clergy, and authors. These noble souls are expected to steer our industrial, fiscal, monetary, and legislative future. Until 2026, this country will remain without a growth-inducing economic policy. Instead, our 'captains of sport and clergy' are expected to grind out the results of policymaking while inflation waltzes with the Treasury and the Reserve Bank storms through with hawkish winds. All the while, the Democratic Alliance will persist with its courtroom battles dressed up as a moral crusade, trying to undo the very legislative frameworks that remain the ANC's only family silver after 31 years in power. Laws that were written by men and women who understood the demands of our Constitution, the need 'to heal' and the imperative 'to redress'. And these are the very words the DA finds offensive: heal and redress. If that's not an emergency, I am at a loss. Comrade Leadership, why deploy 31 innocent souls when you already command a Cabinet twice that size? This isn't a participatory democracy; it's a bureaucratic iceberg — 90% protocol, 10% purpose, masking a freeze on real policy action. The absurdity is staggering. Policy inertia and the endless punting of cans down the road of conventions won't win votes, nor will it heal the wounds of the present — let alone those of the past.
