Mboweni should deliver a 'Resilient Budget' that prioritises growth 

23 June 2020

Today’s reported rise in unemployment of an additional 344 000 people, bringing the total to 7.1 million, represents the state of the economy before the Covid-19 crisis and the full effect of the national lockdown.

National unemployment now stands at 30.1% on the narrow definition, and edges closer to 40% on the expanded definition.

The full economic devastation of the lockdown will only be reflected in statistics for the second quarter, released later this year.

When Minister of Finance, Tito Mboweni, delivers his Emergency Budget speech tomorrow, he must table a 'Resilience Budget’ aimed at helping South Africans brace for the full impact of the lockdown crisis on our economy.

The Emergency budget must make clear where the R100 billion promised relief package for 'jobs and businesses’ is, and what it is being spent on.

So far, we have seen no evidence of this spending.

He must also unambiguously commit government to a programme of fundamental economic reform to reposition our economy for growth. Without this reform, our slow decline and greater impoverishment will continue.

The ANC government has refused to implement comprehensive economic structural reform, choosing instead to retain the status quo despite clear evidence that we are headed for an economic head-on collision.

With each day that passes without reform, South Africa is edges closer to a full-blow sovereign debt crisis. It’s unfortunate that the price for this will be borne by the same unemployed South Africans whom the ANC is choosing to ignore.

Issued by Geordin Hill-Lewis, DA Shadow Minister of Finance, 23 June 2020