Mantashe is holding the fort in the absence of President Cyril Ramaphosa, who is preparing to meet with his United States counterpart, Donald Trump, in Washington later.

The most significant change in Budget 3.0 is the removal of the proposed Vat increases – initially a two-percentage-point hike and later, in Budget 2.0, revised down to 0.5 percentage points in 2025 and 2026.

South Africa’s National Treasury is considering raising additional borrowing in its latest rendition of the budget, to be delivered on Wednesday, to cover a revenue shortfall after a plan to increase taxes was scrapped.

As South Africa braces for Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana’s third budget speech on Wednesday, a wave of expert opinions reveals a landscape marked by both cautious optimism and pronounced concerns. With rising economic pressures and a growing budget deficit, Godongwana faces the complex task of generating revenue without curbing growth.

This comes ahead of three key events today: Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana will re-table the national budget in Parliament, President Cyril Ramaphosa’s high-level meeting with US President Donald Trump at the White House, and Statistics South Africa’s release of the Consumer Price Inflation data for April.

South Africa's National Treasury will likely announce wider budget deficit forecasts on Wednesday as it struggles to find alternative sources of revenue in the absence of stronger economic growth, a Reuters poll of economists found.

Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana will have a crack on the 2025-26 budget for the third time in a period of two months and find revenue to plug the about R75 billion budget shirtfall.