27 February 2020
Aloe Ferox between Cofimvaba and Ngcobo
Finance Minister Tito Mboweni delivered his 2020 budget speech yesterday. Brief highlights for me:
- No major tax increases.
- Fuel levies increase by 25c per litre. A 60 litre tank will cost R15 more.
- A R16,4 billion allocation to South African Airways for "guaranteed debt and interest"
- A R500 million "reprioritising" (rather than an allocation) to finalise land claims.
- A R2,4 billion injection to the NPA, Special Investigating Unit and Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation. "This will enable the appointment of approximately 800 investigators and 277 prosecutors who will assist with, among other things, the clearing the backlog of cases such as those emanating from the Zondo commission."
There was much talk about a sovereign wealth fund, cash injections for youth employment, National Health Insurance; but crucially, there was no firm allocation of resources to any of these.
I'll leave you with this thought: The consolidated budget deficit goes to R370,5 billion, or 6.8 per cent of GDP.
In other words, we are spending an additional R1-billion per day that we have not earned.
