'Spaghetti budget' on state menu
Exodus of top skills raises fears for future of SA's public finances
Suspicions are growing that the Treasury has lost control of the budgeting process, which experts warn will hasten a downgrade to junk and cause a debt trap that could dump the economy into recession. The budget is due to be finalised in line with the Treasury's process by early December, ahead of its delivery in February. But there are fears that after the resignation of the head of the budget office, Michael Sachs, additional items that have not been sufficiently interrogated could be added to the budget before it is tabled in parliament. Next year Sachs will join Gauteng premier David Makhura's office to tackle the province's health department, mired in the controversies of the deaths of 143 mentally ill patients and a R500-million expenditure on a data storage facility it did not need. Sachs will succeed the deputy director-general of performance and monitoring Annette Griesel, who has joined the Department of Women. Makhura wants Sachs to help stabilise the finances of the prov...
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