Earlier today, South African finance minister, Malusi Gigaba delivered his first ever budget speech and based on some of the pronouncements he made, it is safe to say that the country is collectively shook – even our celebrities can’t deal.
Those who are familiar with the status quo know that we went into this budget with a deficit of over R50 Billion (which basically means that we as a country were short of money.)
Our minister moved a few things around however in order to raise the money that was missing but he still has not managed to account for all of it.
Some of the highlights of the speech that directly affect the everyday person (i.e.: you) include a one percentage point rise in VAT, intangible personal tax relief, higher sin taxes and a large fuel levy.
The good news, however, is that the minister and his team have made plans to tackle SA’s stagnant economic growth and increase our GDP over the next three years. In the long run, this will be a good thing for us all but it will take a while to get there.
Social spending (which affects things such as grants, healthcare and community development projects) has also gone up so that is another positive for the people. There is also the free higher education pronouncement but you can read more about that over at MSN.
If ever you needed to have all this put into perspective, allow the more famous members of society to help – check out our response gallery:
Main image credit: instagram.com/vuyomse
