The People’s Budget Campaign (PBC) – represented by COSATU, SACC and SANGOCO welcomes the introduction of the draft Money Bills Amendment Procedure and Related Matters Bill, and the opportunity to make our submission in the public hearings held in Parliament today. (Tuesday 5th).

Since 1997, the Coalition has not participated in public hearings on budgets due to Parliament’s failure to introduce legislation enabling it to amend money bills. The implementation of the Constitution’s injunction in section 77 offers an opportunity for the deepening of public participation in Parliament to ensure that the Treasury’s budgets respond to the developmental challenges of our country such as poverty, joblessness and inequality.

However, as contained in our submission, the PBC has some reservations on aspects of the Bill, including:

1. Its silence on civil and public participation – which would otherwise strengthen parliament’s ability to transform the budgetary process;
2. The Bill seeks to constrain parliament’s ability to amendment money bill through reference to the “fiscal framework” - which it fails to even define in its provisions.
3. The establishment of new committees to deal with money bills which in turn have no clearly defined relationship between them and existing committees dealing with fiscal matters;
4. The Bill does not distinguish between Bills that are meant to appropriate monies and Bills that deal with taxation and levies. Thus, it assigns the same length of procedure to both.

The PBC rejects the Treasury’s proposal for the “responsibility clause” as an insult to the legislative process. Thus, we trust that - after deliberations - the Portfolio Committee on Finance will incorporate proposals that make space for meaningful civic and public participation. We further hope that such provisions would help us realize a path towards a progressive and participatory budgetary process.

For further information please contact:
Mfanafuthi Tsela (COSATU Parliamentary Office) at 021 461 3835
Keith Vermeulen (SACC Parliamentary Office) at 082 523 0701
Sidney Kgara (NEHAWU Parliamentary Office) at 082 455 2614
Wendy Nefdt (SANGOCO Western Cape) at 082 858 2366