South Africa’s budget was an exercise in “fiscal control” – S&P Global Rating

South Africa’s 2021 budget did not focus enough on economic reforms, making a sustained rebound in its gross domestic product unlikely, S&P Global Ratings said on Tuesday.

“There’s been some new momentum on pushing structural reforms … but it’s still reasonably thin, and again the budget was more a sort of fiscal control exercise rather than a structural reform exercise,” said S&P analyst Ravi Bhatia, during a webinar.

“So there is no reason to really expect a big, sustained rebound in the growth trajectory going forward. So that is concerning.” – reuters.com