Parliament approves Budget despite some rejections from opposition parties

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Parliament approves Budget despite some rejections from opposition parties
Parliament approves Budget despite some rejections from opposition parties

Africa-PressSouth-Africa. Parliament has passed the Budget after relevant committees allocating funds to the state approved the Bill.

In a day-long sitting members of the National Council of Provinces went through each department passing the budget.

The opposition parties including the EFF and the DA rejected the budget of most of the departments with the ANC using its majority when a vote was required to push through the budget.

This comes at the time the National Treasury is pushing for reforms on the budget.

This would include using a zero budgeting system not be used, that instead a department must justify an expenditure for every item in the budget.

Minister of Finance Tito Mboweni and President Cyril Ramaphosa have since last year been talking about zero based budgeting.

They said this would enable the state to allocate funds where they were required.

The Covid-19 pandemic has worsened the economic situation of the country.

Despite the economy recovering in the first quarter of the year, last year it declined as most businesses were closed.

However, the government was hopeful that it is now recovering.

In the NCOP on Friday the budgets of departments were endorsed by the House.

“At the same sitting, the Special Appropriation Bill was also passed. Section 16 (1) of the (PFMA) authorises the Finance Minister to request Parliament to allocate funds from the National Revenue to cover the expenditure of an exceptional nature which is currently not provided for and which cannot, without serious prejudice to the public interest, be postponed to a future parliamentary appropriation of funds. The Covid-19 pandemic and the worsening economic conditions confronting the country made this special Appropriation necessary,” said Parliament spokesperson Moloto Mothapo in a statement.

Political Bureau

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