Parastatal funding, fees protests expected to top mid-term budget
KPMG Chief Economist, Lullu Krugel says Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan has the difficult task of increasing South Africa's economic growth, finding a way to grow the tax base and decreasing government debt.
Gordhan will deliver his Medium-term Budget Policy Statement in Parliament today.
Krugel says it's also important that Gordhan continues to placate foreign ratings agencies by announcing plans showing that the Finance Department is serious about increasing the country's economic growth rate.
She says curbing the country's spiraling debt will serve the same purpose.
"We also expect that there might be some focus on tertiary education given the Fees Must Fall protests that we've seen and we expect that there might be some more news around Eskom and SAA - specifically their funding shortfall and how these will now be funded - as well as something more around the nuclear deals," she said.
Meanwhile, a number of marches are expected to take place in Cape Town this morning before the delivery of the budget speech. Students are still demanding free tertiary education.
This involves students from the University of the Western Cape, UCT employees and academic unions who will lead two separate marches to the National Assembly.
They will be followed by the Democratic Alliance student organisation from UCT and members of the 'Save Our Universities Campaign' from CPUT.