Minister of Finance Tito Mboweni will deliver the 2020 National Budget on 26 February, and is asking South Africans to submit their tips on how to grow the economy.
As usual the budget allocation always aims to strike a balance amongst competing national spending priorities.
It is in this context that Minister Mboweni invites South Africans to share their views about economic conditions and other issues they would like government to highlight in the Budget on 26 February 2020.
In particular, the Minister would like public views on, among others:
What can government do to achieve faster and more equitable economic growth?
Contributions can be sent through:
- Twitter: @treasuryrsa with the hashtag #tipsforminfin and #Budget2019
- National Treasury website: tips submission page
Slow growth
South Africa’s economic growth prospects are looking bleak, with the International Monetary Fund the latest to slash the country’s growth forecast for 2020.
Following a year of load shedding, which cut economic growth in 2019 to a crawl, consensus among financial groups puts South Africa’s GDP growth outlook for 2020 below 1%.
South Africa’s growth in 2019 was massively stunted by power outages through load shedding, which led to a major first quarter decline of 3.2%. While this was effectively reversed in the second quarter (+3.2%), a third quarter decline of 0.6% followed.
Despite a boost to GDP for the fourth quarter expected to balance out the year of declines, analysts, economists and financial groups are not expecting a significant reversal in the country’s 2019 growth numbers, seeing a flat outcome when the data is published.
The revised outlook for South Africa reflects structural constraints and deteriorating public finances, which are holding back business confidence and private investment, the IMF said.