Gigaba brushes aside fear for ailing economy
Opposition blamed for hampering plans
Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba has urged the public to ignore negative sentiments about the economy, saying it will soon be turned around.
Speaking in the National Assembly yesterday during a debate on the medium-term budget policy statement he tabled last month, he said “our economy will turn around. A brighter day beckons.”
However, Gigaba did not present new plans detailing what the government was doing to revive the economy.
In his maiden budget statement in October, he painted a grim picture of the economy, with plummeting tax revenue collection and a rising national debt.
Ratings agencies have since reacted with downgrades to South Africa’s sovereign credit ratings and the credit scoring of crucial state-owned companies such as Eskom.
But Gigaba said South Africans should “brush aside the message of despondency and doom” being spread by the opposition, particularly the DA. He said his budget policy statement had been “very frank” and had outlined plans for growing the economy.
“Even at our bleakest moments we must not drown ourselves in our own message of doom and gloom,” he said.
The DA’s David Maynier said the medium-term budget had been a “disaster” that exposed “the full horror of President Jacob Zuma’s mismanagement of the economy in South Africa”.
Gigaba said Maynier was nothing more than a “lame grandstander”. The minister said the ANC had prioritised financial sector transformation which the DA was trying to hamper in order to retain the status quo.
Gigaba denied that the ANC was waiting for the outcome of its elective conference before taking “tough decisions”.