The overall message was a grim one on Day 90 of the Covid-19 lockdown, one of the world’s hardest and longest. Debt, said Finance Minister Tito Mboweni, was South Africa’s weakness. Debt service cost has become the fastest-growing item – to R229.3-billion in 2020, according to February’s Budget, up from R201.2-billion in 2019 and R184-billion in 2018. And later, in his 40-minute address, Mboweni reminded South Africa’s debt is already costing much – to date the country spent on debt service costs as much as on Health. Zero-based budgeting was described as the “narrow gate” government would go through as part of the economic recovery road map. It would stabilise the debt at 87.4% of GDP by 2024 and narrow the deficit. Invoking the image of a hippo’s wide-open jaws – to symbolise the gap between income and expenditure – the finance minister said that closing this gap was the Herculean task South Africa faced.
SOURCE: DAILY MAVERICK
More Stories
The Marshall Nature Reserve Gives a Different Glimpse of the Sudanese Capital
The Journey of Moving Tanzanians Around
Correcting Kinshasa’s Commodity Crisis
Can African Leaders Rate Themselves?
First Black African to Win Grand Tour Stage
Financing Dangote’s Fertiliser Dream Tougher than Expected
This is a Moment for the Women of Kenya
US Support in Somalia Couldn’t Have Come at a Better Time
A Symbol of Sudan’s Resistance
Families of Trapped Miners in Limbo
Google Translate Announces an Addition of 10 Languages Spoken in Africa
All Four Tourists Reported Missing in the Fish River Canyon have been Accounted For