Author: Agency
The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) Forum creates a significant opportunity to elevate issues associated with labour standards and social justice. This is according to Employment and Labour Minister Thulas Nxesi who delivered opening remarks at the Organised Labour and Civil Society AGOA Forum on Thursday. “We exist within complex social and economic environments that are ever changing. But our goals should be to achieve social justice and decent work for all people through a focus on decreasing unpaid labour, increasing social protection, doing away with employment discrimination, increasing wages, and improving job security. “Through these efforts we could…
Work is underway to reconfigure the structure and size of the State as part of government’s efforts to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of public spending. “This Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) supports measures to lift our growth prospects over the medium term and restructures the State to become more effective,” Minister of Finance Enoch Godongwana said on Wednesday while delivering the MTBPS in Parliament. Government is preparing a joint plan to rationalise departments, entities and programmes over the next three years The Presidency, National Treasury, Department of Public Service and Administration and the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation…
SA’s Government has extended the COVID-19 Social Grant (SRD Grant) until March 2025 while it considers social security policy reforms and a funding model. The grant was introduced to support low-income individuals affected by the lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic. Delivering the Medium Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) to Parliament on Wednesday, Minister of Finance Enoch Godongwana said R34 billion has been allocated to extend the grant by another year. “Over the medium term, a provisional allocation is retained while a comprehensive review of the entire social grant system is finalised. The 2023 Budget indicated that the COVID-19 Social Relief…
The servicing of government’s rising debt is “crowding out” social spending in the country, says Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana. The Minister on Wednesday delivered the Medium Term Budget Policy Statement in Parliament, where he explained the challenge posed to spending on social services. “It is important… to point out that our debt levels and rising debt service costs are not problems in and of themselves. “Our challenge is that rising debt service costs are crowding out important social spending, and our economy has not grown fast enough to support increasing expenditure or our current debt levels. Therefore, this policy statement…
SA’s revenue collection is expected to fall by some R56 billion below the 2023 Budget predictions, according to the National Treasury Medium Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS). The MTBPS notes that slowing commodity exports, slower growth, downward revisions of the tax base growth, slowing corporate tax collections and lower net VAT collections have all impacted tax revenue. The 2023 Budget had projected collections would reach some R1.78 trillion but that has now been revised down to R1.73 trillion. “In recent years, revenue collection has benefited from a pattern of high prices for South Africa’s commodity exports. In the current year,…
SA Government is working hard to address deficiencies in the fight against organised crime and illegal financial flows that led to greylisting, says Minister of Finance Enoch Godongwana. “Since February, when South Africa was grey listed by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a large number of government departments and agencies – including the police and the Hawks, National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), Special Investigating Unit (SIU), State Security Agency (SSA), the Reserve Bank, Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) and South African Revenue Service (SARS) – have been working hard to address these deficiencies,” the Minister said. Delivering the Medium Term…
The Department of Communications and Digital Technologies (DCDT) has warned the public against sharing a message that is circulating and promising free data. “The department would like to warn members of the public to desist from participating in sharing the false information and cautions against opening such links as they are fake and harmful,” the DCDT said on Monday. The department said government is striving to ensure that it brings about digital equilibrium by ensuring that it embarks on various activities aimed at connecting the unconnected and leveraging opportunities for everyone to participate in the digital economy. “DCDT has been…
SA Government has established a partnership with business to work together in four critical areas, including energy, logistics, crime and corruption, and employment to give impetus to efforts currently being undertaken. President Cyril Ramaphosa said this while delivering an address to the nation updating on the Economic Recovery progress on Monday. “We continue to collaborate with organised labour and civil society to ensure a whole-of-society approach to addressing the most important challenges our country faces. All of this gives us hope that we are turning the tide on the many challenges that we face,” the President said. This month marks…
Transnet Freight Rail (TFR) will need in excess of R50 billion investment in the next five years to improve capacity and the freight rail performance. In recent years, Transnet has experienced challenges characterised by the condition of the network, security issues, including cable theft and infrastructure vandalism, as well as the unavailability and reliability of the locomotives. Addressing a webinar on the state of freight and rail in South Africa, TFR Acting General Manager: Rail Network and Projects, Bessie Mabunda, said the entity requires a combination of funding to deal with the network backlog and to continually maintain the network…
The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has officially launched a commercialisation enterprise to accelerate the pace and increase the scale of the commercialisation of its technologies and intellectual property (IP). CSIR-C3, pronounced as CSIR C-Cubed, will drive all aspects of technology commercialisation and provide adequate financial resources along the technology de-risking process through to commercialisation. According to the research organisation, the standalone enterprise will hold all CSIR IP and act as an incubator for start-up enterprises underpinned by strong technical and non-financial support. It will enable the commercialisation of CSIR IP through the development of a network of…