Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan's 2011/12 Budget, to be presented in the National Assembly on Wednesday, is widely expected to follow current trends and focus on jobs and growth.

The time is ripe to push the deficit to almost 6% and stimulate the economy, Democratic Alliance (DA) spokesperson Dion George said on Tuesday.

"We believe the fiscal space exists for a slightly relaxed deficit over the next couple of years. Right now, there is space for stimulation," he said.

The DA's "alternative budget" suggested a deficit of R175,8-billion.

"Our revenue would be R831-billion, which is lower than projected by government, [and] our expenditure would be a small amount over R1-trillion, which would bring us a deficit of R175,8-billion, which would [be] 5,99%," he said.

Deloitte KwaZulu-Natal associate director Thrisha Soni expected Gordhan to focus on job creation and employment incentives rather than raising tax rates.

"Jobs are the key focus, but government must consider incentivising businesses to stimulate creation.

"Leniency to foreign companies seeking to invest in South Africa would also promote direct and indirect employment opportunities."

Another stimulant would be offering rebates on internship programmes that encouraged job seekers to acquire new skills and benefited companies willing to impart knowledge.

This would boost training and skills development levels within South Africa and promote learnerships and grants, Soni said.

Business Unity South Africa (Busa), was looking to a budget speech which would boost business confidence.

The budget should be another building block in helping to create a favourable environment for growth and job creation in the aftermath of the global recession, it said in a statement.

Although an economic recovery was underway, it was not yet sufficiently robust.

Since it originated from Treasury, Busa believed Gordhan should clarify the timeframes on the roll-out and the workings of the R9-billion jobs fund recently announced by President Jacob Zuma.

South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Sacci) president Chose Choeu said Sacci would be seeking clarity on various issues.

These included clear measures to reduce regulatory bottlenecks and red tape for business generally and SMEs in particular, allocations for SME support finance, and further funding for job creation initiatives with tangible programmes and commitments to tackling youth unemployment.

Others were funding for the anti-corruption initiatives described in the state of the nation address, further details on exchange control reforms mentioned in the address, and vigorous implementation of the local government turnaround strategy with emphasis on improving efficiencies and reducing wastage.

Sacci would also want stronger direction on the implementation of the National Health Insurance Scheme.

PricewaterhouseCoopers' head: national tax technical, Kyle Mandy, said this year's budget would be challenging, given the projected shortfall in revenue collections, the state of the economy and the very significant slowdown in consumer spending.

Whether real tax relief was given to taxpayers in this year's budget remained to be seen.

"We don't anticipate that this will be the case, however, particularly for high- and middle-income earners," Mandy said.

Sanlam group economist Jac Laubscher said it would be interesting to see whether the R9-billion jobs fund "is in fact just another name for the wage subsidy aimed at addressing youth unemployment mooted in the 2010 budget review".

The R20-billion investment scheme in turn apparently referred to the incentive scheme for manufacturing announced by the minister of trade and industry in November 2010 and should therefore not have any new budgetary implications.

The support for the manufacturing sector clearly illustrated the alignment of government spending with stated policy priorities, he said.

For the budget to be consistent with government's stated objectives, government spending would increasingly have to support a growth agenda.

This implied, among others, a pronounced shift from current to capital spending, which in turn would be difficult to achieve if future increases in the public sector wage bill were not contained.

If spending plans turned out to be too ambitious it could mean a higher budget deficit than projected in future years and a delay in bringing the deficit and debt back to pre-crisis levels.

"Or it could mean a scramble for new sources of revenue such as the carbon emissions tax on new motor vehicles," Laubscher said.