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Cape Town - Political parties and others have broadly welcomed Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan's proposed 2012/13 Budget tabled in the National Assembly on Wednesday.

It exceeds R1-trillion - R1.06-trillion - for the first time and the bulk of spending (R615.7-billion) has been earmarked for social services.

Revenue is expected to be about R904.8-billion.

Democratic Alliance spokesperson Tim Harris said the money allocated for infrastructure and growth was “not good enough”.

“I don't think we got it today, but let's give the minister credit because he managed to bring the budget deficit down.

“The fact that he managed to do that shows us that we have more space to be bold on growth and on infrastructure particularly. We want to see far more on growth. Those numbers aren't good enough,” he said.

African Christian Democratic Party spokesperson Steve Swart said the budget was a pleasant surprise.

“All in all it was a very positive budget in difficult circumstances.”

Swart said he was pleasantly surprised given the global economic crisis and prospect of reduced economic growth in South Africa.

He was particularly pleased that the budget focused on the productive side of the economy, namely infrastructure development, instead of on the consumer economy.

Freedom Front Plus leader Pieter Mulder welcomed plans aimed at encouraging the public to save. There were a number of positive announcements in the budget, he said.

Cape Chamber of Commerce and Industry executive director Viola Manuel said overall the budget was encouraging.

“We support the minister's call for demand-driven growth and we also thank him for acknowledging the importance of all the social partners working together.”

The move to encourage savings was a sensible one and really a move to lower the risk of the state having to take care of people who had not made provision.

Tax relief for small and micro-business was welcome, but “we should view the tax relief offset by inflation and by the rising input costs”.

“If the cost of doing business is increasing, lowering tax only marginally offsets the problem,” Manuel said.

Tabling the budget earlier, Gordhan said it had been crafted at a “challenging but hopeful time”.

“We have to say to our people that economic uncertainty will be with us for some time, yet we have a programme of economic change that can steadily roll back unemployment, poverty, and inequality.

“We have demonstrated excellent resilience during the post-2008 crisis. We now need to introduce a new dynamism among all South Africans,” Gordhan said.

Reducing unemployment was the centrepiece of government's approach to reducing poverty, but it was not the only measure.

The budget was intended to accelerate growth, expand investment, support economic development, and confront poverty and inequality.

Gordhan said South Africa’s finances were in good health. A budget deficit of 4.6 percent of GDP was projected in 2012/13.

It was planned to reduce the deficit to three percent of GDP in 2014/15, and public debt would stabilise at about 38 percent of GDP, he said.

An expansion in infrastructure investment was one of the central priorities of the 2012 budget.

Special emphasis was given to improving competitiveness in industry, investment in technology, encouragement of enterprise development, and support for agriculture.

Education, health, and social assistance would remain the largest categories of spending, sustaining and expanding the social wage over the Medium Term Expenditure Framework period ahead.

The budget continued to support job creation, with a particular focus on unemployed youth.

It also provided for personal income tax relief of R9.5-billion, with further measures to increase tax compliance.

Measures were also proposed to invigorate household savings.

Gordhan forecast economic growth will slow to 2.7 percent in the new financial year - from 3.1 percent in 2011 - but increase to 4.2 percent in 2014.

National government's net loan debt was set to reach R1.5-trillion in 2014/15.

Gordhan's other tax proposals for 2012/13 include a tax incentive to encourage savings, tax relief for micro and small businesses, a 28 cents a litre increase in fuel levies, and the usual “sin tax” increases on cigarettes and alcohol.

The monthly state old age pension and the disability and care dependency grants will rise, by R60 a month, to R1 200, and R1 220 for pensioners over 70.

Foster care grants will go up by R30, to R770, and the child support grant will increase to R280.

These would be reassessed if inflation continued to rise.

Gordhan also announced steps to fight corruption in the procurement pipeline, notably a review of all government's property leases.

Ways to find the billions needed for the National Health Insurance scheme could include an increase in the VAT rate, a payroll tax on employers, and a surcharge on the taxable income of individuals, he said.

A special R5.8-billion appropriation had been included in the 2011/12 budget to ease the toll burden in Gauteng. - Sapa

The full Budget speech