CAPE TOWN - Finance Minister Tito Mboweni will deliver his maiden Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) to Parliament on October 24th.
PriceWaterhouseCoopers said on Monday that although most of the medium-term fiscal planning ahead of this event would have been completed before Minister Mboweni was appointed to his new job, the new minister will now be the face of the fiscus during trying economic times.
The company said that South Africa was in a technical recession during the first half of 2018, and its business cycle is in the longest downward phase since records started in 1945.
Moreover, data from the South African Reserve Bank (Sard) indicated that the local economy was in its 58th straight month of below-trend activity growth during September.
The MTBPS makes adjustments to national expenditure, estimates of income, taxation laws and relevant administrative processes when necessary.
It is also an opportunity for the finance minister to announce adjustments that will have an influence on the South African economy and its consumers, either with immediate effect or, as is most often the case, effective in the next fiscal year.
South Africans are looking to Minister Mboweni this month to bolster their personal finances, job prospects, and the economy as a whole, PwC said.
To achieve this, the finance minister would need to make announcements on several key topics.
These include a revised list of zero-rated value-added tax (VAT) consumer goods, plans to lower record-high fuel prices, the reprioritisation of fiscal spending under the government’s economic stimulus and recovery plan, incentives to stimulate employment creation following the Jobs Summit, and the proposed Infrastructure Fund.