WATCH: How credible is Cyril Ramaphosa’s economic recovery plan?

President Cyril Ramaphosa spoke about building a new economy on Thursday, in the wake of Covid-19. It is important to bear in mind the most important change from pre-Covid-19 SA: a lockdown-induced tax collapse of R304bn.

Additional funding from the World Bank and other international financial institutions only amounted to about R80bn in resources, not close to the tax revenue deficit. The precarious balance between the proverbial “rock” of procyclical fiscal policy and the “hard place” of debt unsustainability is a difficult one to strike.

Did the president strike that balance? Michael Avery talks to Busi Mavuso, CEO of Business Leadership SA and board member of Eskom; Duma Gqubule, who is an economist and founder of KIO Advisory Services; and Hugo Pienaar, chief economist at the Bureau for Economic Research.