Medium Term Budget: Complete rethink needed

He has been speaking to Newswatch ahead of the Medium Term Budget Policy Statement on Wednesday.

It will be delivered by recently appointed Finance Minister, Tito Mboweni.

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Shapiro says the economy is not growing fast enough to prevent ordinary South Africans from becoming poorer.

"Even though the International Monetary Fund has downgraded the global economy, the world is going to grow at 3.7 percent. We are growing, according to IMF, at maybe half a percent - it might be one percent," he said.

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"Regardless, that gives you the kind of gap in terms of our growth. Even growing at that kind of level is not strong enough to sustain an increasing population. We are basically getting poorer."

Shapiro believes Mboweni knows what needs to be done.

"The problem is not Mboweni. I think the problem is the underlying economy, which has been pretty weak. Most of the numbers we have been getting recently, and that includes numbers from companies, point to very difficult situations," said Shapiro.

Mboweni was recently appointed Finance Minister by President Cyril Ramaphosa following Nhanhla Nene's resignation.

Nene resigned in the wake of his testimony at the Commission of Inquiry Into State Capture.

Mboweni is a former Minister of Labour and has also served as Governor of the South African Reserve Bank.