GROWTH AND REVENUE PROJECTIONS
How SA’s fiscal position may be worse than Treasury says
SA's fiscal position, which has already deteriorated so much that the country faces the possibility of losing its remaining investment-grade rating, might be worse than the Treasury has indicated. Kyle Mandy, a tax policy leader for PwC — one of the world's largest auditing firms — said growth and revenue projections underpinning the government’s predictions where debt would peak might not be credible as the Treasury has consistently missed its forecasts since the 2015 fiscal year. This raises the risk of a higher budget deficit, which would be of concern to credit ratings agencies, Mandy said in a presentation to parliament’s two finance committees on Wednesday. In his budget speech last week, finance minister Tito Mboweni said a weaker economy and the need to bail out crisis-hit state-owned enterprises would lead to higher than forecast deficits and that the debt-to-GDP ratio would stabilise at 60% in 2023/2024, slightly higher than what he projected in October. The ratio was 35% ...
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