Budget Speech 22/10/2014

FF PLUS NOT CONVINCED BY BUDGET

The Freedom Front Plus is not convinced that South Africa has reached a turning point in its finances.

"I would like more figures, more honesty, tell us what the problems are and then surely some solutions," party leader Pieter Mulder said outside Parliament on Wednesday, in reaction to Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene's 2014 Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement.

"He went broadly over it. He admits that the growth rate come down to 1.4 percent. That's very serious. He also admits there is a shortage in revenue and then he did some cuts, that's good, but he ends up, he says about R1.3 billion that he could cut."

Mulder said this was too little. With the state needing R16bn in revenue, Nene had indicated tax increases for next year.

"That's not good for the economy and the overall growth rate," he said.


Source : Sapa /aw/fg/th
Date : 22 Oct 2014 15:23
 
Not quite austerity measures I know, but fair reduction measures. The catch is going to be in qualifying "non essential goods and services" if they are going to freeze budgets at this year's levels for the next three years.
 
NENE GOT IT RIGHT: ANC

Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene got the balance between the needs of the poor and state expenditure right, the African National Congress said on Wednesday.

"I think that balance has been very, very important," party treasurer Zweli Mkhize said outside Parliament reacting to Nene's 2014 Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement.

"Having looked at what the minister could have done, I think they have been able to give a very frank picture of the difficult economic situation for South Africans, and that's what we need."

South Africans needed a finance minister who took was honest about the difficult current economic situation.

"Having said so, also to acknowledge that there is a large global economic crisis, that also our own issues, that we need to sort out internally as a country," Mkhize said.

"I think that the focus on saying that government personal expenditure at different levels needs to be contained. I think that's a good one and also a culture of fiscal discipline has to be part of what he must preach."


Source : Sapa /aw/fg/th
Date : 22 Oct 2014 15:30
 
TOUGHER ACTION NEEDED: DA

Government needs to take bold decisions and implement tougher measures to get the economy to recover, the DA said on Wednesday.

"It is a difficult time for South Africa, that is why we need bold and strong leadership. Globally, other markets are starting to recover," Democratic Alliance parliamentary leader Mmusi Maimane said outside Parliament.

He was reacting to Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene's 2014 Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement delivered in Parliament.

"Other African countries are growing at a higher rate than us... and this tells you there is something wrong that we are doing, not simply an economic climate that we are in."

Nene announced measures to check South Africa's worsening debt outlook, warning the country had reached an economic turning point.

Nene said measures would include capping government spending and raising tax revenues.

Maimane said Nene should have announced tougher interventions to hold those who wasted public funds accountable.

"How do we get back money wasted in Nkandla? There are many interventions that minister Nene simply glossed over while taxpayer's money is wasted and not fulfilling objectives it is meant to achieve," said Maimane.


Source : Sapa /gm/fg/th
Date : 22 Oct 2014 15:27
 
DEAL WITH TAX EVASION: EFF

Government must deal with tax evasion to help improve service delivery and ensure a bigger fiscus for the country, the EFF said following the mid-term budget speech on Wednesday.

"Government should deal more with the issue of base erosion and capital shifting and transfer pricing because that is stealing millions of rands from South Africa...," Economic Freedom Fighters Chief Whip Floyd Shivambu said.

"... and there is still no action in terms of these occurrences of tax evasion in South Africa."

Shivambu was reacting to the mid-term budget speech delivered by Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene in Parliament.

He said government had to realise what was at its disposal and the true wealth of the country.

"Our position is that we need a government that will know what is at its disposal, what does it have particularly when it comes to natural and mineral resources, but nothing is being done in that regard. They pretend like everything is fine while there is a crisis of resource theft and tax avoidance," he said.

Shivambu added that in its attempt to rectify the wrongs of the past and bring stability to the economy, the government was failing to realise that the challenges facing the people of South Africa were related to the ownership of mines and businesses.

"The South African government is failing to recognise that the challenges of South Africa are structural problems that speaks to the ownership and control of the economy," he said.

He added that the lack of control on mines and means of production hampered government's ability to deliver services. He said there was no real increment on what was available to improve the living condition of the people.

"We have lots of mineral resources that can be utilised for that purpose but what was presented here is just the continuation of the neo-liberal capitalist project which is not helping," he said.


Source : Sapa /kn/fg/jje
Date : 22 Oct 2014 15:30
 
FIX POOR SERVICE DELIVERY: NFP

Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene should have announced measures to improve service delivery at local government level, the National Freedom Party said on Wednesday.

"There is a lot of service delivery protests in our country... there is no delivery at all. The minister should have said more on how government would ensure that services are delivered," NFP secretary general Nhlanhla Khubisa said.

He was reacting to Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene's 2014 Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement delivered in Parliament.

Khubisa said too much money was being wasted.

"There is too much corruption. There was at least R30 billion that was wasted and not accounted for.

"We believe this must be investigated and corrupt officials not be migrated to other departments. People must be arrested."

Khubisa welcomed the allocation of an additional R32.6 million to the health department to prevent the spread of Ebola to South Africa.


Source : Sapa /gm/th
Date : 22 Oct 2014 15:50
 
DA WANTS REDUCED CABINET

The Democratic Alliance is disappointed that Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene did not mention the size of the Cabinet in his Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement, DA MP Dion George said on Wednesday.

"He did not talk about the size of the Cabinet. He did not touch on wasteful expenditure," he said.

"This means the taxpayer will pay for government mismanagement."

To cut government expenditure meant reducing the size of the Cabinet.


Source : Sapa /mm/ks/th
Date : 22 Oct 2014 15:45
 
NENE 'SCRAPING THE POT': COPE

Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene is trying to "scrape the pot" with his mid-term budget, the Congress of the People said on Wednesday.

"We no longer have money in the fiscus and he's scraping the pot now," Cope leader Mosiuoa Lekota said.

"Throughout and especially towards the end of the fourth Parliament, Mr Pravin Gordhan constantly spoke of a bloated administration, which meant we had far more people employed than we actually require, which means we were losing a lot of money in that area."

Delivering his 2014 Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement in Parliament, Nene said the public service would have to accept inflation-related increases or face staff cuts.

"If increases in public sector wages significantly outpace inflation, government will be forced to curtail service delivery, either by reducing social spending or capital budgets, or by trimming staff numbers," he said.

Nene added that civil service staff numbers would be frozen for the remainder of the medium-term framework, and that departments creating new positions would have to fund these from existing resources.

Lekota said this was too little, too late.

"Public resources have been consumed by excess staff that is worth nothing, that was not contributing to the returns," he said.

"It's not only a question of the staff, he also said a lot of items budgeted for in different departments are now being stopped."

Nene was trying to scrape bits and pieces together to accumulate some excess he could use.

Lekota said the question was whether the administration would support Nene as he tried to implement these measures.


Source : Sapa /gq/ks/th
Date : 22 Oct 2014 15:42
 
The announcements in the budget just give me the sense that Zuma is @ss-raping us and Nene is rationing out the lube.
 
PEOPLE WILL RISE UP: ZULU

People will rise up if there is no change in the levels of inequality, unemployment and poverty, Small Business Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu said on Thursday.

"When the people that have been struggling for many, many years find that the gap between the poor and the rich keeps on expanding, one day they will get up and say enough is enough and we are tired of that," she said at the SA Chamber of Commerce and Industry conference in Midrand.

"[If that happens], believe me, it is not this government that will go out with guns blazing to shoot them. Marikana was a very good example for us, we are not going to make that happen again."

Thirty-four people, mostly striking mineworkers, were shot dead in a clash with the police during unrest at Lonmin's platinum mine in Marikana in August 2012.

More than 70 people were wounded and more than 200 were arrested. The police were apparently trying to disarm and disperse them. In the preceding week, 10 people, including two policemen and two Lonmin security guards, were killed.

Zulu said big business needed to work together with government to fix problems in the country.

"It's high time that you [business] looked deeper into where you are putting the money in terms of supporting black entrepreneurs and make sure that you give them skills that are relevant to the economy of the country," she said.

"It cannot be the responsibility of government alone, but that does not mean that government must abdicate its responsibility to address these issues."

Zulu said her department was clear about using resources of government.

"What we need to do as a department is to lead in terms of ensuring that those resources that sit in the three spheres of government, national, provincial and local is what we will be able to...[use]," she said.

"As a department, sitting in Pretoria, we are not going to be able to deliver to the people. Our connection to these structures at a provincial and local level is very important."

Zulu said the issue of providing money was important because the majority of people, particularly black people and women, did not have enough capital to create their own start-ups.

"We must have mechanisms and systems of ensuring that that money is used properly... we must empower them to use that money adequately," she said.


Source : Sapa /aa/ks/jje
Date : 23 Oct 2014 13:17
 
NENE SAYS LIMITS TO FUNDING GRAFT-FIGHTING

Treasury is reluctant to throw good money after bad by over-committing funds to recover state money lost to corruption, Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene said on Thursday.

"I'm not too sure whether as a country we should be focusing on building capacity on collecting money that we lose as a result of corruption, or we should be closing the leakage as a result of corruption," Nene told the standing and joint committees on finance and appropriations.

"It is like when there are issues with security, where security becomes lucrative business. Is it going to be lucrative business also for us to invest money in how we recover the money that we lost as a result of corruption?"

Nene said he agreed with pleas from the opposition that the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) should be adequately resourced, but added that recovery processes could become costly in themselves.

"Indeed, these structures like the SIU need to be given the capacity, but I don't think we can afford putting in all our resources because we want to recover."

Illustrating the point, he recalled recent media reports that the State Information and Technology Agency spent R10 million to recover three laptops stolen from its premises in Centurion, Pretoria.

"As we have seen... some of these processes don't take as short a route as we think they are going to, and I don't think there would ever be adequate resources."

Nene was responding to broad criticism from opposition parties that plans to cut back on expenditure growth, announced in his medium-term budget tabled on Wednesday, were woefully inadequate given SIU estimates that the state lost an average R30 billion annually through graft and wasteful expenditure.


Source : Sapa /ef/jje/th
Date : 23 Oct 2014 15:25
 
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