Wednesday, 6 March 2019 – The National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces, at separate plenary sittings today, agreed to the 2019 Fiscal Framework and Revenue Proposals.
The Fiscal Framework and Revenue Proposals are part of the 2019/2020 annual national Budget, which Minister of Finance Mr Tito Mboweni tabled before Parliament on 20 February.
As explained in the Money Bills Amendment Procedure and Related Matters Amendment Act of 2018, the Fiscal Framework and Revenue Proposals for a particular financial year aim at carrying out the national executive’s macroeconomic policy, which affects the whole country.
Included in the Fiscal Framework and Revenue Proposals are estimates for a particular financial year of all revenue (budgetary and extra-budgetary specified separately); all expenditure (budgetary and extra-budgetary specified separately); borrowing, interest and debt-servicing charges; and indication of the contingency reserve needed for an appropriate response to emergencies or other temporary needs.
Parliament’s agreement today to the Fiscal Framework and Revenue Proposals follows a series a of joint meetings of the Committees on Finance and Appropriations of both Houses of Parliament with Minister Mboweni, the Director General of National Treasury and senior National Treasury officials and public consultations. This is because the budget, which Minister Mboweni presented, is not the final budget – but a proposal that Parliament must scrutinise and approve.
Parliament’s Select and Standing Committees on Finance also held public hearings and received submissions from a wide range of organisations. These included the Congress of South African Trade Unions, the Budget Justice Coalition, the Pietermaritzburg Pensioners’ Forum, the Priority Cost Effective Lessons for Systems Strengthening South Africa, the Fiscal Cliff Study Group, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, the South African Institute of Tax Professionals, the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants, the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse, Civil Society Organisations on Gender Based Violence and the South African Insurance Association.
The National Council of Provinces plenary sitting today also approved Draft Amended Regulations (in terms of the Legal Aid South Africa Act) and ratified the Minamata Convention on Mercury with its explanatory memorandum. The National Council of Provinces also passed the Powers, Privileges and Immunities of Parliament and Provincial Legislatures Amendment Bill; the National Public Health Institute of South Africa Bill; and the National Credit Amendment Bill.
The Draft Amended Regulations (made in terms of the Legal Aid South Africa Act) seek to increase the threshold amounts (income and other assets) for qualifying for legal aid.
The Minamata Convention on Mercury with its explanatory memorandum, to which the National Assembly agreed in August 2018, is a global treaty to protect human health and the environment from the adverse effects of mercury. The Minamata Convention includes a ban on new mercury mines, phasing out existing ones, phasing out and phasing down use of mercury in several products and processes, control measures on emissions to air and on releases to land and waste, interim storage of mercury and its disposal once it becomes waste. The Convention is named after the city of Minamata in Japan, where local communities were poisoned by mercury-tainted industrial wastewater in the late 1950s.
The Powers, Privileges and Immunities of Parliament and Provincial Legislatures Amendment Bill addresses the 18 March 2016 Constitutional Court judgment. This judgment declared section 11 of the principal Act to be invalid because it also applied to Members of Parliament. The amendment Act addresses this by providing that a “disturbance” does not include an act carried out by a Member of Parliament. The National Assembly established an ad hoc committee to review the principal Act following the Constitutional Court judgment and the amendments bring the Act in line with that judgment and also with developments related to parliamentary powers and privileges. The Bill will now go to President Cyril Ramaphosa for assent.
The National Public Health Institute of South Africa Bill establishes such an institute to co-ordinate and, where appropriate, conduct disease and injury surveillance.
The National Credit Act, a Committee Bill originally coming from the Portfolio Committee on Trade and Industry, aims to promote responsible lending and to protect vulnerable consumers. The Bill will now be sent to President Ramaphosa for assent.
ISSUED BY THE PARLIAMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA
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