Parliament building, Cape Town. (Steven Allen, Getty Images)
South African lawmakers, in their first vote since a new government was formed, agreed to revive a bill allowing the National Treasury to release funds to ministries for the year through March 2025 to perform their duties.
Lawmakers in the previous administration failed to complete the process to get the Appropriation Bill — tabled by Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana in February — passed before elections were held on 29 May.
The ANC, which has ruled South Africa for three decades, lost its parliamentary majority for the first time in the elections. That forced it to form a coalition government with rivals including the centrist Democratic Alliance and other smaller parties.
South African law states that should the bill not be passed in its entirety, then government spending reverts back to the previous fiscal year. Now that it has been revived, a series of mini debates will be held for lawmakers to vote on each department’s budget.
Godongwana will speak at the National Treasury’s budget debate on 12 July.
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