Cape Town - An analyst and business organisations found Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana’s mini-budget as unsurprising and lacking in some areas.
Economist Dr Azar Jammine said: “It was very much what was expected – that Godongwana would maintain fiscal discipline. There is nothing in the policy to excite.”
He noted that Godongwana stuck to his guns on the 3% wage offer to unions.
Business Unity SA CEO Cas Coovadia said there were numerous positives from Godongwana’s speech.
“The allocation of R5.8 billion to Transnet is good, but we look forward to Transnet being serious about a genuine partnership with the private sector to make private involvement the norm instead of the exception.”
He said the increases in allocations to the police, NPA, SIU and FIC send out a clear message that there must be law and order, but this might be too late to avoid a grey-listing.
“We note the statement on Eskom. However, given the ongoing energy crisis, and the announcement of the president’s plan, we would have expected a clearer and more definitive approach in the MTBPS.
“We welcome the announcement that the government will take over between a third and two-thirds of the debt and we welcome the conditions announced. However, we must say that government should have moved faster to address the structural problems at Eskom and address its structure.”
He lamented the overall outlook as poor, with growth forecasts dropping to 1.9% for this year, from a projection of 2.1%.
“This is primarily due to load shedding and a drop in exports. Real GDP growth over the next 3 years is expected to be a paltry 1.6% and this underlines the urgency to deal with the energy situation and the imperative for investment and growth.
“Busa has been urging the government to collaborate with us in bilateral structures to progress critical deliverables in critical priority interventions. We will continue to try and progress this.”
Business Leadership SA spokesperson Tumelo Muteme welcomed Godongwana’s statement, but added that challenges still lingered in the quest to build a humming economy that creates jobs.
Agri SA said in a statement that they were disappointed that the statement failed to provide critical interventions to support hard-hit farmers.
SA Canegrowers chief executive Thomas Funke welcomed the speech but expressed disappointment on an apparent failure to give any indication on the future of the health promotion levy, “an existential issue for South Africa’s cane-growing industry and broader sugar value chain”.