It’s probably right for the National Treasury to be sounding the warning bells about state spending. As a Treasury document on “cost-containment measures” three weeks ago put it, there was an “exceptionally large year-to-date decline in government tax revenue collections, estimated at R22bn for the first five months of the year”. This implies a R50bn shortfall for the full year.

The country, in other words, is in a fiscal bind. The outlook is gloomy and sentiment is tanking. The question of how to reverse the trajectory — first through a series of short-term interventions and then through longer-term action — is one that occupies the minds of the best of our corporate leaders...

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