How the government can fight fiscal fatigue
South Africa has likely achieved a primary budget surplus — the first in 15 years. However, it will be too small on its own to stabilise the debt ratio. Much more needs to be done
After years of making little headway in slowing the build-up of debt, South Africa has shown signs of fiscal fatigue — when measures to arrest debt are too tentative and become smaller over time. However, the achievement of a preliminary primary surplus (when revenue exceeds noninterest expenditure) in 2023/2024 shows how hard the National Treasury is pushing to change this.
Fiscal fatigue is described by University of the Free State economics professor Philippe Burger as the result of having “a too-little-too-late policy of, as a government, implementing measures, but they never quite suffice to arrest the increase in the debt ratio”...
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