Mid-term budget not solution-based: Opposition parties

Gigaba yesterday placed the economic growth outlook at 0.7% from 1.3% - saying it's the largest downward revision since the 2009 recession. 

The DA's David Maynier says they expected to hear more on government's solutions for struggling state-owned enterprises like SAA and the Post Office which recently received bailouts worth billions.  

He says Gigaba said very little about over expenditure. 

"The medium-term budget policy statement revealed a complete budget blow-up with the deficit being pushed up by R54-billion to over R200-billion," he says. 

ALSO READ: Gigaba places economic growth outlook at 0.7%

The UDM's Nqabayomzi Kwankwa says the mini-budget seemed flat with unspecific comments about the most important aspects of the economy.

"When the Minister of Finance talks about his government being serious about the fight against corruption, what we see is that he has the credibility of a cat that decides to conduct a Commission of Inquiry into the disappearance of mice. We don't believe that they are serious about it," he says. 

The IFP's Narend Singh says the Minister didn't present anything new. 

"He was very heavy on giving challenges to deal with the economic problems that we have in our country," he says.