Subsidise taxis too

SIR – While looking at the Budget, it may have been a tough act trying to balance expenditure with declining revenues.

When it comes to allocation of capital and resources, history has shown the private sector being far more efficient and cost effective as opposed to the state. A rand spent by the private sector goes far further than a rand spent by the state.

This should be carefully considered when hiking tax rates, especially income tax on salaried people. The endless bailouts for SOEs which the finance minister has continued, especially with SAA, is a case in point. Subsidising a national flag airline, which is a hindrance and hopelessly inefficient to its competitors, makes no business sense.

I would have pulled the plug on SAA a long time ago. However, maybe the decision was to appease the president more than anyone else, so this was a smart political move, Minister Gordhan. I think you saved your job here. The second bailout is that of government “top heavy” investments in commuter rail and the so-called public transport by municipalities.

The minister of finance is subsid-