Budget 2017: Mixed reaction from political parties
Political's parties have reacted to Finance Minster, Pravin Gordhan's Budget Speech - with some saying the minister could've provided more solutions on reducing expenditure.
The country's debt is sitting at 50% of Gross Domestic Product - but the Minister said it will stabilise at about 48% of GDP over the next three years.
The DA's David Manyier says the Finance Minister missed an opportunity to cut government spending.
"The minister spoke about tax increases in order to raise R28-billion worth of additional revenue. We believe that the Minister should have been speaking about spending cuts and cutting current expenditure on, for example, the R14.9-billion penciled in for bloated executives and legislatures," he said.
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While, the ANC's Mdumiseni Ntuli says Pravin Gordhan's speech was well-balanced.
"We are happy with the trajectory of the budget. We understand the constraints - some of which are not a result of our internal challenges as a country but are global in character. We believe that despite all of this - there is a commitment from government to ensure the direction of the country is the one that takes us to an economic transformation," he said.
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The IFP's Narend Singh says they expected the Minister to address land issues.
"On the revenue side, he spelled out exactly where the Treasury is going to get revenue from. However, on the expenditure side a lot more can be done by government and state-owned entities. The minister omitted details on how much pressure is going to be put on departments to spend their money effectively.
"There was nothing that stood out that one could say it was something new. In terms of spending, we would have like to have seen more money allocated to land restitution. It didn't receive the kind of priority that one would have expected," he said.