Inside the plan to balance the budget in two years :: Mmegi Online

Ministries, departments and agencies are currently submitting their ‘zero-based budgeting’ proposals for the year 2022-2023, representing the long-awaited shift to a tighter, more efficient way of public spending. But on top of this, the government intends to further streamline its spending, raise even more revenues domestically and crackdown on inflated project costs, as it battles to drag the budget back to a balance. Staff Writers, MBONGENI MGUNI & PAULINE DIKUELO report

The country’s budget, or government’s financial statement of how much it receives and how much it spends, has been running shortfalls since 2017-2018. Essentially this means since that time, the government has been spending more than it receives or makes, a situation that has meant a need for more withdrawals from its reserves housed in the Government Investment Account (GIA), as well as higher borrowings from the local capital market.

Government had originally anticipated that the first three years of National Development Plan 11, from 2017-2018 to April 2019-2020, would carry deficits and the last three would first balance, then carry surpluses, helping restore the fiscal stability necessary to continue the country’s sustainable development aspirations and associated indicators such as high credit ratings.

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