A tax revenue shortfall of around R50 billion may be on the cards this year due to low corporate income tax contributions and weak export commodity tariffs.
Analysts say companies’ spending on self-generated power due to rolling blackouts and Transnet’s logistical failures that have affected commodity exports have curtailed corporate taxes.
Transnet says it is facing a debt crisis and will need at least a R100-billion bailout from government to recover and implement its turnaround strategy.
Economist Iraj Abedian says the impact of Transnet’s problems on the fiscus ahead of Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana’s Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) in Cape Town this afternoon.
“Transnet has been a source of undermining growth and undermining fiscal revenue because when we currently export minerals when the mines dig it out and they cannot take it to the habour, the harbour is not functioning to get containers being delivered … it’s a disaster.”
Abedian adds: “We’ve talked about and analysed and highlighted it, in terms of the impact in the medium to long term, but the government just ignores the law of gravity and state enterprises have been an absolute disaster.”
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