Ramaphosa closes ranks around Godongwana over budget

By Amy Musgrave

President Cyrill Ramaphosa has come out in defence of Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana over the budget fiasco, saying he should not resign, but instead it should be used as an opportunity for “all of us to learn from this” to strengthen the budgetary process.

It should also be viewed as South Africa maturing as a democracy, said Ramaphosa who was speaking to journalists following a Workers’ Day rally in Middelburg, Mpumalanga. It was also addressed by Congress of SA Trade Unions president Zingiswa Losi and SA Communist Party general secretary Solly Mapaila.

He said that in the past the budget was a “one way type of process”, but now it has been opened up for institutions, political parties and ordinary people to make contributions.

“… because we are drawing a lot of lessons from all this, this is something that we need to take on board and