SIMON BROWN: I’m chatting now with Gaba Tabane, director, government and public services industry leader at Deloitte.
SIMON BROWN: It’s going to be a fairly chunky expense. I suppose in some sense, though – let’s assume it stays at R350 – the money goes back into the economy, it gets taxed. There’s going to be Vat, there’s going to be transport, which is the fuel levy and all of that. It certainly helps the poorest of the poor. Does it put additional strain on our budget? We’ve got rising debt, we’ve got concerns around that deficit already.
The saving grace for me is the crowding in of private-sector investment which the president spoke about, and recognition that jobs are created by the private sector and not the public sector, and that the public sector’s role is to make the conditions conducive for business to flourish so that jobs can be created.
GABA TABANE: It’s definitely going to put significant strain on the budget if the 2018 commitments have to be met by the state to the unions. Now, we all know how big a role the unions play in the relationship with the ANC and consequently the government, so it is not easy to get out of those commitments on the side of government. I still insist there isn’t any room to wiggle, especially if these realities have to kick in.
We haven’t done enough in dealing with the problems that the country has been grappling with historically in terms of ensuring that there is adequate expenditure in the healthcare sector on, for example, tuberculosis and the HIV/Aids pandemic. We have to go back to the previous heights of ensuring that we deal with these, because they are still realities that were just overshadowed by the Covid-19 pandemic.
GABA TABANE: Yes. We actually expect the state-owned entities to be running at a profit, as opposed to be taking away from the fiscus, but we all know that it’s not happening. SAA is not doing that, and so on. Denel is not doing that. So it’s a big concern. And the question is, what sort of relief should the government be giving state-owned enterprises? Should it be all financial relief?