The FF Plus says Finance Minister Tito Mboweni must take unpopular decisions on State-Owned-Enterprises when he delivers his Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement on Wednesday.
The party’s Member of Parliament, Wouter Wessels, says Mboweni needs to be tough in dealing with some of the cash-strapped enterprises.
“This budget must balance the books and give direction and there would have to be a lot of unpopular decisions that have to be made to salvage the situation such as with regard to state entities but the minister is held ransom by the alliance partners to make decisions that will save the country.”
Meanwhile, the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) wants to see concrete measures to stabilise Eskom.
The party says the power utility needs to get its act together after receiving a capital injection of about R59-billion spread over two financial years.
ACDP Chief Whip Steve Swart says, “We would like to see stabilisation of particularly Eskom that has now received an extra R59-billion that has to be found from somewhere and of course we would like to see economic growth being stimulated this will in turn increase tax revenues and of course help to balance the books.”
Also, some of the political parties in Parliament want Mboweni to make the stabilisation of the deficit and reducing national debt his priority.
The national debt is estimated at over 50% to the country’s Gross Domestic Product.
The DA wants the wage bill to be slashed by R168-billion and savings directed to education and safety for South Africans.
DA Finance spokesperson, Geordin Hill-Lewis says, “Essential services on which the poor and the public at large rely on in South Africa are being crowded by interest expenditure as debt goes up we spend more and more on interest bill; every year already we spend more on interest than police and fighting crime; soon we will spend more on interest than educating our children.”
