News 08:00

BULLETIN 2 April 8 am

Good morning. I am……..

In this bulletin:

# The MK Party opposes the fiscal framework and revenue proposals
# Dawie Roodt says the proposed VAT increase is no longer necessary
# And six suspects are killed in shootouts with the police in Soweto

# The MK Party strongly opposes the 2025 fiscal framework and revenue proposals as tabled by Finance minister Enoch Godongwana. Parliament’s Finance committee held a meeting on Tuesday, where the ANC, ActionSA, and IFP teamed up to support the fiscal framework with strict conditions. The MK Party says the proposed measures in the fiscal framework, including the 0.5-percentage point increase in value-added tax, fall short of providing a sustainable and equitable solution for all South Africans.

Meanwhile, economist Dawie Roodt says increasing the value-added tax by 0.5-percentage points is no longer necessary, given that the South African Revenue Service has collected nearly ten-billion-rand more than originally estimated. The proposed VAT increase is a major stumbling block in Finance minister Enoch Godongwana’s national budget, which will be voted on in Parliament today. Roodt says Sars has been quite effective recently in getting personal income taxpayers into the net:

# Six suspects were killed during a shootout with police in two separate incidents in Soweto, Gauteng, on Tuesday. Two suspected cash-in-transit robbers were shot and killed in Dobsonville, and five others were arrested while firearms and ammunition were also seized. The Police ministry’s spokesperson, Kamogelo Mogotsi, says in the second operation in Moletsane, a team responded to a robbery involving two RAM Courier vans:

# New Jersey Democratic Senator, Cory Booker, has broken the record for the longest speech ever delivered in the US Senate. He spoke for 25-hours-and-four-minutes, surpassing the late Senator Strom Thurmond’s speech against the Civil Rights Act, which lasted 24-hours-and-18-minutes in 1957. Booker intended the effort as a protest and spent his time criticising president Donald Trump’s administration. He called it a grave and urgent moment in American history:

# Tennis: Switzerland’s Stan Wawrinka earned his first tour-level win of the season in the first round of the Tiriac Open in Bucharest, Romania. He battled past qualifier Timofey Skatov of Kazakhstan, 6-4, 6-7, 7-6. Wawrinka is the third player aged 40 or over to win an ATP Tour or Grand Slam match on clay since 1980. Defending champion Hungarian Marton Fucsovics overcame Italian Luca Nardi, 6-3, 6-1, to set up a second-round clash with Argentina’s Mariano Navone, a rematch of last year’s final.

# And the financial indicators: The dollar trades at 18-rand-46-cents and the euro at 19-rand-94-cents. One British pound costs 23-rand-86-cents and Bitcoin trades at 84-thousand-697-dollars. Gold sells at three-thousand-128-dollars-70-cents a fine ounce and Brent crude oil is quoted at 74-dollars-25-cents a barrel.

Stay tuned for more news………….