Johannesburg – Political parties, civil society organisations, and trade unions have made known their wish lists for the upcoming budget speech by Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana this week.
ActionSA's Eastern Cape chairperson, Atholl Trollip, who is the party’s spokesperson on the 2023 Budget, said that chief among the issues that the finance minister will have to address is how to fix the debt crisis at Eskom, which threatens to derail the entity’s unbundling and has been a bottleneck for investment in the country’s transmission network, thereby limiting independent power producers’ ability to contribute generation capacity to the electricity grid.
"ActionSA believes that social grants should be a temporary measure to assist the most vulnerable in society, while long-term economic growth is what creates job opportunities and independence from these grants, and that will ignite job creation that will lift the majority of our people out of poverty."
He said that without fixing the fundamental impediments to South Africa’s economy, such as a lack of competition, failing utilities in freight rail and electricity, and growing red tape, no amount of money will be able to ignite economic growth.
Freedom Front Plus spokesperson Wouter Wessels also echoed the need for addressing Eskom’s dire financial position and debt, but added that the entity must also implement a holistic framework and systems to counter the damage caused by load shedding.
Wessels said that all luxuries must be cut from the budget and that departments cannot be given more money to squander.
"Every single cent must be used to stimulate the economy, grow businesses, and create jobs.
"Spending on basic service delivery and infrastructure forms part of those unavoidable expenses and serves as a basis for economic growth," he said.
The Big Voice of Small Business (SBI) business forum urged Godongwana to assist small businesses and their employees, households, and families dealing with high living costs and load shedding.
The organisation's CEO John Dludlu said they are appealing to him to explain how the government will protect South Africans from the effects of the 18% tariff increase granted to Eskom by the regulator.
"This increase, if effected, will worsen the hardship of households which are suffering from high food prices especially of sources of proteins," said Dludlu.
Dludlu also said that the government has given grants such as the Covid-19 grant, but these get swallowed up by inflation.
"Our preference is that we create and give as many jobs to South Africans and take as many unemployed people—especially the youths—to become taxpayers instead of social grant earners. Ours is a caring society," he added.
The Federation of Unions of South Africa (Fedusa) said that public servants who have just entered the 2023 wage negotiation process hope that the government will raise salaries significantly.
" We appeal to the finance minister to keep in line with the outcomes of the public sector summit last year that spelt out the need for Treasury to await the wage negotiations process before a set amount is placed. Whatever remains of the already budgeted R45 billion over the three-year MTEF period will not suffice to cover real increases," said the trade union in a statement.
Fedusa also highlighted that close to 8 000 workers at SA Post Office and Telkom were facing job losses in a labour market climate that has seen workers struggle to re-enter once retrenched.
Fedusa urged the finance minister to engage his Cabinet colleagues in government to utilise the funds in the Employment and Labour Department’s job creation and job preservation schemes to save these jobs.
"The National Development Plan places great weight on the government’s ability to ensure decent work is maintained and that human and workers’ rights are respected. We want to see the government walk the talk by saving these 6000 jobs at the Post Office and the 1 770 at-risk jobs at Telkom as it claims restructuring," added the labour federation.
The Star