EFF STATEMENT ON THE MEDIUM TERM BUDGET POLICY STATEMENT DELIVERED BY TITO MBOWENI
Wednesday, 24 October 2018
The EFF notes the Medium Term Budget Policy Statement delivered by the newly appointed Minister of Finance, Tito Mboweni. Unfortunately the policy statement by Minister is a clear demonstration of the ANC's inability to reimagine South Africa's macroeconomic framework. Instead, we continue to see reliance on defunct neoliberal policies that have failed in the last 20 years.
The EFF registers its utter disappointment that there was no mention of dealing with the phenomenon of illicit financial flows, tax base erosion and tax avoidance by in the main, multinational companies. In a situation where revenue collection is not meeting the needs of our budget, a policy statement that does not speak to the phenomenon of illicit financial flows is totally unacceptable. Failure to address all tax gaps in the absence of solid non-tax revenue indicates that it is workers who will continue to carry majority of the tax burden. This is all the while multinational companies enjoy the benefits of low tax rate and aggressively avoid tax and shift profits.
The MTBPS also did not provide any tangible plan or program of how to deal with the debt to GDP ratio which is currently standing at over 60%. Without such a plan, we may find ourselves as a county reaching 100% debt to GDP ratio which will be a crisis.
However, we welcome efforts put in place to relieve economic pressure from the poor in these difficult times of a technical recession. In particular, the decision to give free sanitary towels to poor young girls. This will bring dignity to our people and it is an important step towards free sanitary towels. We also welcome the decision for zero taxation on products like bread and cake flour. This should lead to the reduction ultimately of the price of bread which is basic food for many poor people in our country. Above all, we celebrate the zero taxation on sanitary towels.
Furthermore, the EFF rejects the insistence that Gauteng citizens must pay eToIIs.
We reject this policy and reiterate a complete boycott of the eToIIs across all Gauteng roads.
The matter of sanitation in schools has been a government commitment since the days of Mbeki. A commitment has been done to eliminate pit toilets in schools since then. Even today, Mboweni repeated this commitment, yet nothing ever happens. It is clear that this government does not take the unsafe sanitation conditions seriously to deal with them, once and for all.
Finally, the persistent complaints about public service wage bill appears to be war drums before massive retrenchments in the public service. The EFF rejects any intention to retrench public servants as this will worsen the already existing crisis of high unemployment levels.
Instead of massive retrenchments, Government must refocus the public service with the intention of building internal capacity. In its current form, government is overly dependent on tenders and external service providers, whilst there are employees who can perform the same functions.
Statement issued by the Economic Freedom Fighters, 24 October 2018
