By Amy Musgrave
ActionSA has revealed that Finance Deputy Minister Ashor Sarupen, who is a member of the Democratic Alliance, was involved in the budget process, including the VAT increase.
This follows Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana divulging in a reply to a parliamentary question that both his deputy finance ministers were intimately involved in the entire budgetary process.
“ActionSA can today reveal… that the DA’s Deputy Minister of Finance, Ashor Sarupen, was intimately involved in the budget process, particularly in drafting the original 19 February budget speech which included the deeply unpopular 2 percentage point VAT increase, as well as the subsequent revision to the split 1 percentage point increase, despite their denials,” the party said in a statement.
“Yet in recent weeks, the DA has cynically weaponised this very VAT hike in a desperate attempt to salvage its political image and to extract more influence in the GNU.
“Far from acting in the public interest, the DA has waged an internal war in the GNU — prioritising extortionist power plays and ministerial positions in the GNU over the financial well-being of millions of struggling South Africans.”
ActionSA said the DA’s “kamikaze-style attacks” on the budget process have never been about blocking an unjust tax hike. Instead, they were a deliberate attempt to sabotage the budget entirely and hold the country’s finances hostage, all in the hope of renegotiating their increasingly fragile position in the GNU.
“Far from opposing the VAT hikes, they were fully aware of them — and offered their support on a silver platter — right up until their power-play demands were rejected,” the statement read.
ActionSA said when it stepped in at the 11th hour and entered budget negotiations with the African National Congress, it was with no hidden motives, no secret deals and no preconditions.
“Our only strict conditions, on behalf of the people of South Africa, were no VAT increase and no income tax bracket creep. Our recommendations included in the fiscal framework report opened the only practical door to meaningful alternatives — and we backed it up with real solutions.”
While the party said it remained committed to ensuring that there was no VAT hike before 1 May or as soon as possible thereafter, Godogwana has warned in court papers that the increase is going ahead.
The DA described the statement from ActionSA’s Alan Beesley as a weak attempt at deflecting the fact that he remained “a midwife of tax increases when he helped the ANC ram through the fiscal framework”.
DA spokesperson Karabo Khakhau said the statement was deliberately misleading.
The DA was consulted on the draft budget on 7 February 2025 and stated its opposition to a 2% VAT increase.
“For the next two weeks, the DA continued to reiterate this position. This was reported in multiple papers in the aftermath of the budget being abandoned and the DA confirmed this publicly. On the 23rd of February, in the lead article in the Sunday Times, Helen Zille is quoted as saying: ‘There were several meetings that were happening, the contents of which were confidential. All I am at liberty to say is that the DA made it clear we would not support a tax increase’,” Khakhau said.
She said the day the day the budget was due to be tabled, the DA led the charge against the VAT hike, resulting in it being abandoned.
“The DA acted decisively and consistently to stop an unjust tax hike that would have hurt South Africa’s poorest households. The idea that a deputy minister being consulted — as is standard in budget preparation — equates to support or complicity, is pure dishonesty,” said Khakhau.
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