JOHANNESBURG - Minister Tito Mboweni will today deliver his maiden mid-term budget policy statement today to the nation at 14:00 local time.
Mboweni’s speech comes ahead of the much anticipated Investment Summit, led by President Cyril Ramaphosa.
You can follow all the mid-term budget policy statement news here on Business Report or follow our social media accounts on Facebook or on Twitter.
The speech will also be aired live on DStv channel 407 and also streamed live on youtube on Parliament of the Republic of South Africa.
National Treasury’s estimate
The parliamentary budget office (PBO) has forecast that the national budget deficit will reach 4% of GDP this year, compared to National Treasury’s estimate of 3.6%.
The PBO’s estimate is in line with that of Moody’s and is based mainly on lower than expected growth for the current financial year. It also made a more pessimistic forecast of the level of debt as a percentage of GDP, predicting that it would reach 52.2% in 2020/2021.
It told Parliament’s standing committee on finance that optimism about global recovery had been replaced with uncertainty, and emerging markets were feeling the impact of recent sharp downturns in the exchange rate.
However, in terms of revenue collection, the picture was looking better for South Africa than expected.
PBO officials raised a number of questions about the government’s stimulus package and its potential impact on the economy, saying there was scant detail on the planned allocations and whether government spending on this would be “deficit neutral”.
National Treasury and SARS officials hard at work, finalizing the MTBPS Speech with Minister of Finance @tito_mboweni and Deputy Minister Mondli Gungubele. Speech will be delivered on 24 October 2018. #MTBPS2018 pic.twitter.com/iX60XV7lxs
— National Treasury (@TreasuryRSA) October 21, 2018