Godongwana’s budget strikes cautious, market-friendly tone
· Citizen
Finance minister Enoch Godongwana’s budget speech in parliament yesterday needs to be studied by those who accuse this country of being run by socialists and Marxists.
That’s because, overall, the measured, prudent tone of the fiscal policy he enunciated was redolent more of capitalism than any other “ism”.
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If he is robbing the rich to pay the poor, there was scant evidence of that in yesterday’s speech or in the detailed explanations of the budgetary workings provided by National Treasury.
There were no painful tax hikes. There were no announcements of profligate spending on vanity projects or schemes to purge the money class or suck up their wealth.
Godongwana effectively “gave back” R20 billion in tax he and his planners had predicted would be necessary this year to help balance the books.
He made it easier for the middle class by easing up on everything: from medical aid credits, to tax brackets to dramatically raising the company turnover ceiling for VAT registration.
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Sure, there were levies on fuel – that is low-hanging fruit for governments worldwide – and expected increases in “sin taxes” on alcohol and tobacco products.
But there was plenty of distinctly unsocialist information which spoke of an economy being helped back to its feet after the plunder of the state capture years (again, hardly socialism but more like looting).
So, our operational budget surplus is going to increase by modest amounts and the overall deficit is going to decline.
In line with that, our overall national debt – which is a marker of spendthrift populist government – is also being gradually reduced.
Godongwana would have been the darling of the people like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund for his moderate approach to nursing a sick economy.
We need that approach because the road to recovery will be long.
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