Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba has defended his candid medium-term budget policy statement (MTBPS) to investors. Speaking ahead of a closed session with investors at the JSE in Cape Town, Gigaba said: "We’ve opened the books and told the country and painted a gloomy picture…. Had we tried to spin the story and say to SA that things are not what they seem to be, we would have been dishonest." He explained that the purpose of the medium-term budget was to convey that the situation in the economy is tough. "We need to go beyond business as usual in order to grow the economy. Building confidence is actually one of the easiest and cheapest stimulus (measures) that you can inject in the economy. Investors want to see us building confidence," he said. This could be achieved through solving the mining impasse, implementing policy reforms, putting energy into reforming state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and re-establishing confidence in SOEs.
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