Following the presentation of the much-awaited and controversial Budget speech on Wednesday, the African National Congress (ANC) has accused the Democratic Alliance (DA) of a “desperate attempt to undermine transformation” by rejecting the 2025 Budget.

ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula was briefing the media on Thursday, and further accused the DA of seeking to using the Budget process as leverage to renegotiate its role within the Government of National Unity (GNU).

Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana yesterday tabled his delayed Budget that included lower, yet still controversial, increases to the value added tax (VAT) rate, as he sought to hold the fiscal-consolidation line amid rising spending pressures.

The new proposal involved increasing the VAT rate by 0.5 percentage points in 2025/26 to 15.5% and by 0.5 percentage points in 2026/27 to 16%, rather than the immediate two percentage point hike to 17% proposed in the aborted Budget of February 19.

DA leader John Steenhuisen said his party would not support this Budget in its current form, vowing to continue fighting for economic growth and jobs.

Mbalula said the DA’s rejection was not based on concerns for fiscal responsibility, but rather to “protect white monopoly capital” and roll back democratic gains.

“…not because it has the interests of people at heart but because it is determined to advance an agenda that prioritises privilege over progress,” said Mbalula.

Meanwhile, the DA party blamed its GNU partner, the ANC, for “sacrificing” South Africans and “risking” the economy with the proposed Budget.

“It is deeply unfortunate that the ANC is prepared to sacrifice the South African people and risk the economic future of the country rather than accept it no longer has majority support. The ANC VAT Budget doesn’t have a majority, and the DA won’t give it one. It is now up to the ANC to fix the mess it has created,” Steenhuisen stated.

Mbalula said the DA’s demands exposed their “true intentions”. He claimed that the DA wanted labour laws scrapped to allow employers to fire workers at will and that the party wanted black economic empowerment policies to be abandoned.

He further claimed that the DA wanted to weaken institutions that had been established to reverse economic exclusion.

“…these are the same policies that entrenched inequality and racial capitalism in the past, and the ANC will never allow such regression. Their opposition to the VAT increase is not about protecting the poor, it is about ensuring that economic policies serve corporate interests at the expense of working-class South Africans,” Mbalula said.

He accused the DA of seeking to create an “Israeli-Gaza type situation” using the Western Cape as “their political salvo”.

“A scenario in which African and coloured people of the province would be treated as subhuman in the land of their birth. This is the reason behind their insistence on Cape Town’s port being conceded and attempts to carve out an economic enclave where the interests of the privileged are protected at the expense of the majority,” Mbalula averred.

He insisted the Budget proposal provided a framework for investment, industrialisation and economic transformation, to ensure that South Africa’s wealth was shared among its people.

“The Budget is a step forward and with the continued support of the people we will ensure that it translates into real and tangible progress,” he said.