JOHANNESBURG: The South African rand opened weaker early on Wednesday, hours before the finance minister was set to present a revised annual budget in parliament.

At 0530 GMT the rand traded at 18.26 against the dollar, down roughly 0.3% on Tuesday’s closing level.

The budget was meant to have been delivered three weeks ago, but it was postponed at the last minute because of disagreements in the ruling coalition over a plan to hike value-added tax by 2 percentage points to 17%.

South African rand gains ahead of delayed budget, US recession fears

Local media have reported that the amended budget is likely to propose a smaller VAT increase, in a concession to try to get the budget through.

But it is still not clear that will work.

The long-ruling African National Congress needs the support of one or more of its biggest rivals to pass the fiscal framework, and they have all publicly opposed raising VAT.

Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana’s budget speech is set to start around 1200 GMT.