South African Budget 2018: Walking a Fiscal Tightrope

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South African Budget 2018: Walking a Fiscal Tightrope: Abstract

In December 2017, as South Africa’s minister of finance, Malusi Gigaba, and the Treasury continued putting together the country’s 2018 budget, the country seemed perilously close to a fiscal cliff. Dismal economic growth and failures to contain government spending threatened to push the national debt to unsustainable levels – a situation compounded by public mismanagement and pervasive corruption in the form of “state capture”. Gigaba had to find a way of halting the decline of South Africa’s finances while ensuring that the fiscus continued in its central role of supporting the poor.