treasury intervenes

Ten things you can expect from Malusi Gigaba’s first budget speech

Well, maybe JZ will shuffle him to spare him the trauma.

treasury intervenes

Well, with the way uBaba likes to shuffle we might have a new Finance Minister by next week. But in the event that previously shuffled Malusi Gigaba is still in charge, there are a few things you should be looking out for next week.

Economists from  Deloitte published their predictions for the mini-budget and there’s not much good news.

Economists estimate that revenue collections will fall short of budgets which will be bad news. With an estimated shortfall of R50 billion or more, things could go downhill pretty quickly.

Here are the ten talking points you can expect from Gigaba’s mini budget speech

  • The possibility of a downgrade
  • Bailouts for SOEs
  • Some more info on the National Health Insurance (NHI) Scheme and the potential removal of current medical tax credits as a means of funding NHI
  • Revenue Authority collaboration in Africa and some of the potential consequences for companies and ‘high net worth’ individuals
  • Personal Tax Proposals (including the proposed Wealth Tax)
  • Measures to combat tax avoidance  and the success or failure of the recently concluded Special Voluntary Disclosure Programme (SVDP)
  • South Africa’s ranking in the World Bank’s Competitiveness Index
  • When we can expect to see sugar tax and carbon tax proposals announced
  • Wasteful expenditure in the public sector
  • South Africa’s progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals and compliance with international regulations

Gigaba has been under fire pretty much since he was shuffled into the position. The economy is stagnating, unemployment is at crisis levels, especially amongst the youth and investors are increasingly cautious.

It’s not gonna be easy for Gigba to encourage a positive sentiment.

Good luck, Mr. Fancy Suits.