The South African national budget has been a topical issue for over several months now. Yes, under normal circumstances, the National budget should be topical as it affects the economy. However, this time it was mainly because of the delay in the budget publication and the budget speech. It was supposed to be released on February 19, 2025, but it was postponed and finally delivered in March 2025. One of the issues announced was a planned increase in the standard Value-Added Tax (VAT) rate to 15.5% from 1 May 2025, and further to 16% from 1 April 2026. This move was intended to boost revenue, but the proposed VAT increase was later withdrawn because of the substantial opposition from political parties, businesses and the public outcry.
This article focuses on public reactions to the recent National Budget announcement based on comments collected from YouTube videos. Through qualitative thematic analysis, key insights have been drawn from a wide range of opinions and sentiments expressed by viewers. These themes highlight the key findings of the people’s dissatisfaction with fiscal policies and political leadership. People’s main concerns were the economic burdens and governance issues being brought to them.
Public Reaction Findings Interpretation
To get the reactions, we went through YouTube videos and used the comments as data to analyse the views of the public on the National Budget. The data was then later grouped into interpretive themes, which showed comments of the same reaction to the national budget as a whole and other groups as per below. Now we’ll explore the sentiments and concerns expressed by viewers, providing insights into the public’s response to the fiscal policy decision. The themes and analysed findings are as shown below-
Visual Insights
The visuals below illustrate the distribution and intensity of the most frequent themes.
Overview of Themes
The most frequently occurring themes across the comments include:
- National Budget: 950 mentions
- Against ANC: 281 mentions
- Against Tax: 100 mentions
- Against VAT: 100 mentions
- Against DA: 100 mentions
The most frequently shared sentiments expressed were of the National Budget as a whole, which shows substantial comments totalling 950 mentions. According to the graph above, multiple people’s comments echoed their fears about affordability and poor prioritisation of public funds, one of the comments even remarked, “South Africa is bankrupt. There better be something in the address about the government taking responsibility. Superfluous chattering is not what we want.” This is just one comment of the public’s reaction to the National Budget overwhelmingly negative, as many South Africans feared the potential negative impact on the economy and the additional burden.
It is then followed by the disgruntlement of South Africans against the ANC as a political party in the government, which had a total of 281 mentions. Several users criticised the ANC with one stating, “The ANC has failed us again – instead of cutting wasteful expenditure, they tax the poor even more.” This reflects growing frustration with political leadership and perceived mismanagement of funds. Furthermore, according to our analysis, the comments against VAT, DA as a political party and against SARS (Tax as a whole) had the same outcome.
However, in the analytics of the comments, some had conjoined reactions against DA and Vat, against Vat and ANC or against political parties which includes EFF as well. A notable number of comments raised broader political frustrations of ANC and DA, including a statement like “Did I hear right, “a collision government” and why must the budget be dependent on either ANC government or a GNU?”. To add more some even went on further commenting about BEE, saying “Stop BEE procurement by government and save R150 Billion a year”.
In conclusion, the proposed VAT increase in South Africa's National Budget 2025 sparked widespread criticism and opposition from various stakeholders. The public's reaction, as reflected in YouTube comments, revealed deep-seated concerns about the economic impact and governance issues. Ultimately, the government's decision to withdraw the VAT increase underscores the importance of considering public sentiment and engaging in inclusive decision-making processes. This highlights the need for policymakers to balance fiscal sustainability with social responsibility and economic growth, while also addressing the pressing needs and concerns of citizens.
