JOHANNESBURG - South African finance minister, Tito Mboweni delivered his 2020 medium-term budget policy statement earlier today in parliament.
Here are some of the highlights from his address:
- State debt climbs, stabilizing in five years - achieved mainly through a freeze in state-worker pay
- Government debt surges, with forecasts exceeding those in the June adjustments budget
- Gross debt is set to peak at 95.3% of GDP in 2025-26, from 81.8% this year
- That’s higher than the 87.4% peak that Mboweni predicted in June reached in 2023-24, albeit as the best-case scenario. The projections are well off the “active scenario” that the minister spoke of then
- “The probability of a debt trap – in which rising debt-service costs are increasingly paid from additional borrowing – has increased,” Treasury says in the budget statement
- Debt service costs seen at 18.3% of spending in 2023-24 compared with 12.9% now
- The budget deficit narrows after this year’s jump
- Treasury sees the consolidated gap at 15.7% of GDP this year (the same as was predicted four months ago)
- It then narrows to 10.1% next year and 7.3% by 2023-24
- Tax collection is seen R8.7 billion less than the June projection
- Treasury estimates tax increases of R5 billion in 2021-22, while acknowledging that the scope for raising taxes may be exhausted as evidence suggests they have a negative impact on economic growth
- The focus will be on reducing spending, with expenditure savings of R300 billion over three years compared with previous budget projections
- The bulk of that is from the state wage bill through a pay freeze for this year and the next three
- The expected economic contraction for this year is 7.8%. That’s a bigger decline than forecast in June but still less than the central bank’s estimated 8.2% drop
- Expansion is seen at 3.3% next year and 1.7% in 2022
- Financing needs ease after this year
- The national government borrowing requirement declines to 602.9 billion rand in 2021-22 from 774.7 billion rand
- Government doesn’t anticipate increasing auction levels this year, will continue with bond-switch program
- South African Airways gets another R10.5 billion to help it restart, with the money being taken from other state departments
- Support for Eskom is reduced by R4.2 billion over the medium term
BLOOMBERG