This week’s budget speech should provide for surprisingly better headlines about the short-term state of the fiscus compared to previous expectations as higher growth from the bullish commodity markets boosts state coffers, making it unlikely that finance minister Tito Mboweni will have to increase taxes.
Some political players are resorting to conspiracy theories to pin the blame for the poor investment sentiment towards South Africa on investors.
BLSA agrees with President Cyril Ramaphosa on his four overriding priorities: defeat Covid; accelerate the economic recovery; accelerate economic reform to drive inclusive growth; and fight corruption. A determined focus on those priorities will help to address an array of the country’s problems.
Delivering a state-of-the nation address when your country nears the 50,000-fatality mark from Covid-19 must rank as the most difficult that any modern-day South African president has had to do. The difficulties have been compounded by questions arising about the efficacy of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which has slowed the rollout in SA. Under these conditions,…
This year’s state of the nation address (Sona) takes on a much different hue from those of yesteryear for one important fact: we’ve all been disrupted.
The issue of land reform needs to be tackled with sensitivity, sensibility and within the full ambit of the law. While we cannot afford to ignore the issue any longer, neither can we tackle it with recklessness.