President Cyril Ramaphosa has sought to clarify that there are a number of countries that face budget challenges but are able to fix them over time.
His remarks follow the postponement of the Parliamentary Budget sitting due to parties in the Government of National Unity (GNU) failing to agree on how the budget should be constituted.
The Budget Policy Statement has now been rescheduled to the 12th of March.
Briefing the media after the opening of the G20 foreign ministers’ meeting in Johannesburg, Ramaphosa says this is not a fatal fall out.
“Budgets in many countries are possibly the most important event that happens. Even in your more mature democracies, they often have budget hiccups, they often have budget mini crises, which they are then compelled to sit back and resolve and find and build consensus.
On what happened yesterday, is in many ways the maturation of our own democracy. And some people have said that this is democracy at work and I would tend to agree.”
Meanwhile, economists widely believe that the postponement offers an opportunity for government to review the budget and how it is drawn up.
