Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba appeared to backtrack on his nuclear stance on Wednesday, saying in Parliament that SA would pursue the nuclear build programme at a pace and scale the government could afford. In his maiden medium-term budget policy statement in October, Gigaba suggested SA had neither planned for spending on nuclear nor could the country afford it. It is estimated the nuclear build programme could cost R1-trillion. In the medium-term budget policy statement Gigaba painted a bleak picture of the state of SA’s economy, with the projected revenue shortfall for 2017-18 a staggering R50bn, due to slow growth and poor tax collection. The consolidated budget deficit would jump to 4.3% of GDP in the next fiscal year, against a target of 3.1%. Energy Minister David Mahlobo too said during the economics cluster question-and-answer session in the National Assembly on Wednesday that nuclear remained part of SA’s energy mix. "The fact of the matter is that there is no doublespeak...
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