BUDGET
STEVEN FRIEDMAN: MPs do not want it, so why the VAT hike?
In a democracy, no measure that is constitutional should become policy or law if most MPs do not want it
Is democracy here a system in which the people decide? Or, as a silence over the past few days suggests, something we care about only when it helps us remove presidents? Parliamentary finance committee chairman Yunus Carrim says the ANC caucus did not want the 100-basis point increase in value-added tax (VAT) the budget speech proposed. No one has contradicted him, so we can assume this is what the caucus thinks. Most MPs are in the ANC caucus and the DA also opposes the VAT hike. So a large majority of our elected representatives do not want the increase. Yet it is sure to become law. Carrim pointed out that Parliament can change anything in the budget it does not like. But no one expects the ANC caucus to reject the increase. Its national executive has defused the rebellion by promising to look at exempting more goods from VAT. Party discipline and a system that allows parties to fire MPs means Parliament has not used its power to change the budget in the nine years it has been al...
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