While many political parties have expressed high expectations ahead of Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana’s Budget Speech on Wednesday, the African Transformation Movement (ATM) believes it will be a repetition of promises that are pleasant to contemplate, but would unlikely be fulfilled.
Zama Ntshona, spokesperson for the ATM, said it is sad that the Budget Speech, which is by design expected to ensure certainty in the country, will be nothing but another “political posturing and platitudes”.
“The ATM is expecting more big talk, pie-in-the-sky promises, and contradictions,” said Ntshona.
“When in the last Budget Speech [of the year] 2022/3 the Minister of Finance spoke about the required structural changes, we knew that it’s a code phrase to do everything possible to enable IMF [International Monetary Fund] loans.
“Following his discussions with the IMF in mid-2022, they agreed that South Africa needed to bring down its debt. The fact that the debt service cost is the single biggest line item in the Budget is absurd.
“Yet, only last month, we saw reports in the media that South Africa is back with a begging bowl to the World Bank seeking $1-billion [R18-billion] loan on the basis that the rates were lower. This kind of speaking left and walking right is what undermines the policy certainty of South Africa.”
Ntshona added that Godongwana also addressed the issue of state-owned power utility Eskom’s debt and promised to work on sustainable solutions to deal with the pressing matter in a manner that would be fair to all stakeholders.
However, Eskom’s debt continued to spiral out of control.
Ntshona said the minister is himself a part of “a cabinet decision to undermine the revenue inflows for Eskom through allowing prime clients of Eskom like mines and viable municipal metros to generate their own electricity”.
“This means Eskom’s capability to generate its own revenue to service its debts has been undermined with the blessings of minister Godongwana. Now the poor households have to put up with the irrational Nersa [National Energy Regulator of SA] tariff increases to compensate for lost revenue. A self-created crisis.
“The so-called bounce-back scheme to support [small and medium enterprises] SMEs probably went to the cronies of the ANC, because the ATM is inundated with SMEs that have been hit by the poor management of [the] Covid-19 [pandemic].
“Institutions like the NEF [National Empowerment Fund], which were set up to support primarily black entrepreneurs, remain underfunded. So, the big talk about giving a helping hand has just been nothing but hollow sounds.”
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