IN-DEPTH
SA has a long journey to fiscal health, but it's not an unfamiliar one
SA’s national debt has probably reached levels last seen during the tenure of the apartheid government, which propped up an expensive political system that most of the rest of the world despised. Former president Jacob Zuma’s tenure was not as costly to taxpayers as FW de Klerk’s, but at the end of March debt service costs were projected at R162bn — equivalent to 13% of all tax revenue collected. When democracy arrived in 1994, the new government inherited a flailing economy. Years of sanctions against the apartheid regime had ravaged the economy and plunged the country into junk status. Restoring the health of the economy was a mammoth task for the new administration, but during former finance minister Trevor Manuel’s tenure in that position, SA climbed back into investment grade and economic growth soared. President Cyril Ramaphosa also inherited a poisoned chalice from his predecessor and when he took office there was a mixture of relief and apprehension as the country’s small ta...
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