THE National Assembly on Thursday passed the Division of Revenue Amendment Bill.
The bill was passed by 214 voted in favour and 119 voted against.
The bill will now be sent to the National Council or Provinces for concurrence
The Democratic Alliance, Economic Freedom Fighters, the Freedom Front Plus and the African Christian Democratic Party all voted against the bill.
The bill provides for the reprioritisation of funds allocated to national, provincial and local government in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and was tabled by Finance Minister Tito Mboweni when he unveiled his emergency budget last month.
Mboweni said the government had little choice but to shift resources in order to fund efforts to combat the coronavirus crisis.
“Faced with a contracting economy where we are going to lose plus minus R300 billion in tax revenue, it is unavoidable that the budget deficit will be higher than we would have wanted,” said Mboweni.
“We should seek, going forward, to be on a zero-based budgeting system. That will allow us to prioritise even more those items that are unavoidable and growth-enhancing. We have to mobilise additional resources from international funding institutions. We have approached the Brics Bank, the IMF, the AfDB and the World Bank.”
The Division of Revenue Amendment Bill is set to come before the National Council of Provinces for its approval next Wednesday.
(Compiled by Inside Politics staff)
