The government tells us that 36.4 percent of its revenue comes from tax on personal incomes. However, we should be told what percentage of that is government employees and what percentage is non-government employees.
Simply put, the government employees’ tax is just about giving with the one hand (government salaries) and taking with the other (tax).
And like it or not, the government salaries come from what I would call fresh or new money. But of course these facts are not palatable to the spin doctors.
On another issue: I must confess that I do not possess an economics degree and only achieved a mediocre pass in matric way back in the seventies. However I have run a successful business for more than 34 years, so I feel I did pick up a thing or two.
I cannot work out how the minimum wage is the answer to our economic problems. Unless a business or enterprise can afford to pay R3 500 a month the national minimum wage decision will have achieved nothing.
There is no doubt that staff reductions will be the order of the day.
People go on and on about the poorest of the poor, but no-one is willing to confront the problem head on. The problem is having too many children to feed and abandoned children. Until this fact is reinforced and explained to people we will never get out of the poverty cycle.
The National Development Plan was completed in 2012, but very little has come of it other than forming part of another self promoting expensive advertisement by Jeff Radebe.
The ridiculous thing is that the readers of Business Report are fully aware of what the country needs to function better. They do not need a meaningless advertisement from government to explain it to them.