SA in danger of missing growth forecast, says Treasury’s Lungisa Fuzile
There is doubt that SA’s economy will grow by the 0.9% that Treasury has projected, director-general Lungisa Fuzile told MPs on Wednesday. Negative factors such as structural constraints and low business confidence were driving down SA’s economic performance, he said in a presentation to Parliament’s finance committee on Treasury’s 2015-16 annual report. The government needed to ensure policy certainty, restore investor confidence in the durability of institutions and address structural factors that constrained growth, he said. “A determined and united response is needed to overcome economic challenges that include skills and electricity shortages and adverse trade movements,” Fuzile said. “In the absence of action, low economic growth leads to shortfalls in revenue with fiscal consolidation being derailed as national debt rises.” There was little the government could do about the state of the global economy but lots it could do domestically. “The sooner we get going in implementing...
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