PARLIAMENT - Zwelinzima Vavi, the secretary general of the South African Federation of Trade Unions, on Wednesday described Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba's budget as an attack on the country's poor.
"This is an onslaught on the workers now taken into the second gear," Vavi said.
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"We are absolutely very angry at the one percent increase in VAT. It is very regressive which punishes and hurts the poor more than anybody else."
Gigaba told a press briefing shortly before he delivered his first national budget that he viewed the increase in value added tax as the tax hike least likely to hurt the poor.