Godongwana mini budget 'market friendly,' says economist
An economist has described the Finance Minister's mini budget as market friendly.
"Quality things are going to be difficult to archive, but clearly the minister of finance means business when he says he wants to stabilise debt levels," says Dawie Roodt.
"It is important, however to understand that the high inflation is also supporting the minister in getting ratios to where they want it, but broadly thinking I think what a positive speech."
Roodt says Enoch Godongwana's decision to take a huge chunk of Eskom's debt burden away from the utility was inevitable.
READ: Govt to swallow part of Eskom's debt to keep it afloat
In an effort to ease the pressure on our struggling power producer, government's taking over a significant portion of Eskom's R400 billion.
"What is important, though, is Eskom needs to be restructured and that we don't end up in the same situation and the same goes for other state-owned enterprises and the minister did say that he is going to be very strict with the bail money because they have to implement certain measures and they are implemented before they get the money."
Godongwana also announced that government will scrap Gauteng's controversial e-tolling system.
Meanwhile, non-profit SA Canegrowers has welcomed the commitment to address the damage to infrastructure caused by the April foods in KZN but says it wanted to hear more about the future of the sugar tax.
