Budget 2023
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Party pleased with no new taxes

Cape Town - The Christian Democratic Party was pleased no new taxes were introduced in Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan's Budget on Wednesday.

"The Christian Democratic Party welcomes the tax relief announced by Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan," leader Theunis Botha said in a statement.

"We appreciate that the minister had to submit an acceptable budget to Parliament under extremely difficult circumstances, due to both internal instability and depressing international news, especially from Europe."

The CDP's concern was that conditions could deteriorate further due to an otherwise largely incompetent Cabinet, poor leadership, and scepticism about the government's commitment to eliminate corruption, mismanagement, and waste.

"Add to this the actions of militant unions who appear to be determined to undermine the country’s economy by mobilising their members in economically destructive activities, and one has a real recipe for disaster."

Botha said if the situation was not stabilised, Gordhan would find it difficult to reach the budget's objectives.

While it was a declared objective to ease conditions for small businesses, red tape, including the Consumer Protection Act, did the opposite.

"Grandiose consumer laws [were] unable to prevent South Africans from being fed donkey meat,” he said.

The African Christian Democratic Party broadly welcomed what it described as "conservative budget".

MP Steve Swart said the minister was not swayed from "government's prudent, counter-cyclical fiscal policy", despite negative factors such as the labour unrest in mining and agriculture.

Swart did, however, warn the budget deficit and spiralling debt service costs should be contained.

"The size of the budget deficit at present results in debt service costs rising faster than any other category of spending over the medium term, which crowds out spending on developmental priorities," he said.

A greater focus on implementing the National Development Plan (NDP), as well as the R827bn committed to infrastructure projects won favour with Swart.

"This (NDP), together with the infrastructure development projects will stimulate economic growth, create jobs and make our country more competitive internationally."

Bigger allocations to departments in the criminal justice system were also welcomed.

"In view of public outrage at widespread sexual abuse of vulnerable women and children, both the criminal justice and social development (social workers) sectors need substantial strengthening."

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