Cape Town - Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana says the country is on track to implement structural reforms, which will boost growth in the economy and create jobs.
Briefing the media on Friday during the tabling of a report on structural reforms, he said government had been working hard over the past few months to implement these reforms.
Godongwana said some hurdles had been removed after the allocation of the digital high-demand spectrum.
Government was now working on resolving the energy crisis.
South Africa has seen the return of rolling blackouts in the past few weeks, which has affected businesses due to the lack of reliable energy supply.
Eskom has come under pressure from political parties and various sectors for the power cuts.
Godongwana said government will resolve the energy crisis.
“We are mindful of these reforms and over the coming months we will redouble our efforts to resolve the energy crisis.”
He said one of the steps government has taken was to reduce the licence threshold to 100MW for embedded generation.
There were 28 reforms that were identified by government and some have been implemented.
This augured well for the economy as more money will flow into it.
“These reforms are already bearing fruit. In digital communication the successful allocation of the high-demand spectrum not only raised R8 billion for the fiscus, but recent estimates suggest the industry will invest over R50bn.
"In transport, the successful implementation of third party access to the freight rail network can spur an additional investment of R58bn.
"In electricity, where we are working with the private sector to unblock the remaining challenges to free up embedded generation, we can realise investment of R54bn,” said Godongwana.
He said structural reforms were important to revive the economy.
Minister in the Presidency Mondli Gungubele also said structural reforms will ramp up the economy.
He said some progress has been made since the reforms were implemented.
Current Affairs