JOHANNESBURG - Finance Minister Tito Mboweni has outlined the strategy that the ruling government has laid out to pull the country out of it's economic nightmare.
Mboweni said, "Last year, the Government embraced the ideas contained in the document Towards an Economic Strategy for South Africa. This is our plan, and it contains the basic and fundamental pillars of our approach."
Mboweni listed the following points:
- Strengthening the macroeconomic framework to deliver certainty, transparency and lower borrowing costs
- Focusing spending on education, health and social development
- Modernising “network industries” and restructuring our state-owned enterprises
- Opening markets to trade with the rest of the continent
- Implementing a re-imagined industrial strategy
- Lowering the cost of doing business
- Focusing on job-creating sectors, such as agriculture and tourism
Mboweni further stressed that underpinning all of this will be the need for an efficient and capable state.
"We must also leverage the private sector as far as possible. Today, we report on our progress. “We are moving forward!”
Outline of the budget for 2020/21
- A sound macroeconomic framework always lays the foundation for growth.
- Budgets are complex, but the numbers are simple. The numbers show that we have work to do.
- For 2020/21, revenue is projected to be R1.58 trillion, or 29.2 per cent of GDP.
- Expenditure is projected at R1.95 trillion, or 36 per cent of GDP.
- This means a consolidated budget deficit of R370.5 billion, or 6.8 per cent of GDP in 2020/21.
- Gross national debt is projected to be R3.56 trillion, or 65.6 per cent of GDP by the end of 2020/21.