People’s Budget Coalition disappointed in 2008 Budget

By Celeste Ganga
21 February 2008

The People’s Budget Coalition; that comprises of COSATU, SANCO and the Council of churches, are disappointed in the 2008 budget speech that was delivered by Finance Minister Trevor Manuel on Wednesday.

“We feel that after being promised ‘business unusual’ by the President, we’ve been offered ‘business as usual’ by the Minister of Finance,” says COSATU’s Patrick Craven.

Craven adds that although the Minister recognised the key problems to be the same as the Coalition -being poverty, unemployment and slow economic growth - they believe that the measures he took were not strong enough to face up to the enormity of the challenge being faced.

“While we welcome the small improvements in welfare payments and job creation schemes- we will be campaigning for much stronger measures. In particular we will continue to campaign for a basic income grant and at the very least the extension of the child support grants to the age of 18,” explains Craven.

They will also be campaigning for a reduction of VAT (value added tax), something they believe could’ve been done.

“We certainly aren’t happy with the continuation of a budget surplus, at a time where we have such pressing problems and people in such desperate need,” says Craven.

He adds that every available cent should be used to try and resolve these problems and not left sitting in a bank account.