Johannesburg – Finance Minister Tito Mboweni’s Budget of “hope” will bring minimal relief to workers and the poor while giving a much-needed boost to the private sector, according to worker unions and economists.
The Congress of the South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), a civil society organisation and two leading economists were reacting to the Budget statement delivered by Mboweni yesterday.
Mboweni said he was not without hope that strategies outlined to make SA a winning country would succeed.
“Today I want to leave you hopeful and outline how we will leave this economy in better shape for those who come after us,” he said.
Spokesperson of Cosatu Sizwe Pamla, however, pointed to, among other things – corporate tax cuts, public sector wage increase freeze and below-inflation social grants increases – and described the Budget rather as “a slap in the face of the most vulnerable people in the country”.
Pamla slammed the announcement of a set of multibillion-rand job creation programmes fort he youth and public sector employees, arguing they would fail to yield tangible job creation results since they lacked clear targets.
Mboweni unveiled that R83.2-billion had been cumulatively made available for the public employment programmes since the 2020 Special Adjustments Budget.
“We are now augmenting this by R11 billion for the Presidential Youth Employment Initiative, taking the total funding for employment creation to nearly R100 billion.”
Pamla said the budget is giving more to the private sector through the corporate tax cuts, but giving very little to the most vulnerable people in our society.
