The media have privileged access to the finance minister as well as Treasury officials during the lockup, while the minister is joined by Treasury’s director-general, the governor of the South African Reserve Bank and the commissioner of the South African Revenue Service.
Questions related to Eskom and austerity dominated the media briefing as journalists wanted to know the details of the Eskom relief package, how it would affect Eskom bond holders and which coal-fired power stations would be concessioned, as well as why the budget allocations to health had been cut in real terms.
Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana said an international consortium of mostly European companies would undertake a review of Eskom’s coal-fired power stations and complete their report by mid-2023.
Only then would Eskom say which power stations may be concessioned.
Ismail Momoniat, Treasury’s acting director‐general, said it would be incorrect to call this budget an “austerity” budget as health in particular had received above-average increases in 2020 and 2021 to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic.
The baseline for comparison should be the 2019 pre-Covid Budget and when comparison was made with this, then in fact there were still real increases in the budget allocated to health, he said.
He also addressed the issue of greylisting. Since 2003 South Africa has been a member of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which sets global standards to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism across national borders.
The FATF’s most recent mutual evaluation of South Africa identified a number of deficiencies in its legislative framework and implementation, and Momoniat said the government had made tremendous progress on rectifying these shortcomings over the past 18 months
The FTAF is due to pronounce on whether South Africa will be grey listed on Friday, February 24.
BUSINESS REPORT