Preparing for the 2020 Budget Speech
JOBURG – All eyes will be on finance minister Mboweni after another tough financial 12 months.
SA’s finance minister is expected to dive into the country’s economic abilities and stability as he will deliver the budget speech on 26 February.
During South African finance minister Tito Mboweni’s 2019 Budget Speech on 20 February, he said ‘we are the masters of our own destiny’ and explained what the country needs to be done to protect South Africa’s fragile economy. Fast-forward 12 months and he will account for how the country dealt with the R243-billion deficit in the budget. Mboweni said, “Put another way, we are borrowing about R1.2 billion a day, assuming that we don’t borrow money on the weekend.” A bleak picture for the national purse.
The speech he will be delivering on 26 February at parliament in Cape Town will reflect on the commitments made, challenges faced and solutions used to change SA’s outlook.
He built his budget on the following fundamental prescripts:
- Achieving a higher rate of economic growth
- Increasing tax collection
- Reasonable, affordable expenditure
- Stabilising and reducing debt
- Reconfiguring state-owned enterprises
- Managing the public sector wage bill.
The issue of state-owned enterprises will be a hot topic of the speech due to the monumental challenges faced by Eskom, South African Airways and Denel. In Mboweni’s 2019 address he stated that Eskom used an additional R50 billion of its R350 billion guarantee in 2018/19, Denel was granted a further R1 billion guarantee and SAA guaranteed debt increased by R6.2 billion. This is all money that many South Africa’s feel should be utilised elsewhere such as education, health and housing.
South African’s have had to face another 12 months of hopelessness and struggle due to our economic woo’s. People are having to dig deeper into their pockets to afford food, basic services, and transport and if possible save. All eyes will be on Mboweni once again to hear how we have done over the last year and what we plan to do going forward.
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