As the fifth Parliament draws to a close, the Budget Justice Coalition (BJC) has opted to develop a submission that provides an overview of the key budgeting trends of the past five years, as well as the impact of these on two elements of the social wage: health and education. The submission also focuses on Parliament’s oversight role in relation to the budget, looks at how budget decisions have been made and provides recommendations to support greater and wider participation by the public in the budget process.

This submission is made in response to the call by National Treasury for public comment on the report by the Panel for the review of the current list of zero-rated VAT items. This submission objects to the February 2018 decision to increase VAT and call on Treasury and Parliament to reconsider this decision.

The budget training manual is a lasting legacy of the SPII budget training workshops, whose printing and distribution will enable other interested stakeholders to carry on the work. The material can and should be used for training on budget processes with a particular focus on local government.

This research presents a Decent Standard of Living (DSL) and a DSL Index (DSLI) for South Africa. It is based on a concept for relative poverty that focuses on the ability of people to achieve a socially determined acceptable standard of living to enable them to participate fully in society.