Finance minister Tito Mboweni has requested that the medium-term budget policy statement be delayed by a week to October 28, speaker of parliament Thandi Modise announced on Tuesday evening.
The medium-term budget policy statement is tabled halfway through the government’s financial year and updates the Treasury’s economic projections and adjusts the budgets of departments.
Modise said in her statement that Mboweni “highlights the recent complex decisions taken by cabinet in respect of the 2020/2021 adjusted estimates and the 2021 MTEF [medium-term expenditure framework], as well as the implications of the time frames for the finalisation of [the] government’s economic reconstruction and recovery plan on the budget process as reasons necessitating the proposed rescheduling”.
She said that the National Assembly programme committee will consider the request. The date for the adjustment budget was set down for next Wednesday by parliament, after a request by the Treasury only weeks ago.
The request comes at a crucial time for the country as the Treasury attempts to plot a way out of a recession, made much more severe by the Covid-19 lockdown.
Business, labour and the government have been intensely engaged in talks to agree on a recovery plan, which has been sent to the cabinet for consideration. However, President Cyril Ramaphosa’s economic advisory council has thrown a spanner in the works and criticised the debt consolidation path chosen by the Treasury saying that the expenditure cuts envisaged will choke growth and the recovery.
Ramaphosa is expected to announce the recovery plan in a speech to both houses of parliament on Thursday afternoon.
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