On 22 February, the Minister of Finance,
Enoch Godongwana, unveiled the
National Budget. The proposed budget
allocation aims to strike a balance
between national spending priorities
and limited resources.
Despite a wide variety of geopolitical
factors, South Africa’s economy grew
by an estimated 2.50% in 2022, which
was an improvement on the projected
figure of 1.9%. Real Gross Domestic
Product is projected to average 1.4%
between 2023 and 2025 and Stats SA
predict a 2.0% GDP projection for 2023.
As with the economy vehicle sales
showed better growth than expected,
outperforming the country’s GDP and
growing 19.3% year-on-year with the
retailing of 363 092 units compared to
the 304 341 of 2021.
The 2023 Budget speech focused
on the energy crisis, tax cuts for
households and businesses, increases in
various social services, including health,
education and various social grants and
the R903 billion earmarked for infra-
structure spending.
If the planned Eskom debt takeover
realises, business can look forward to
less load-shedding as the resources
which would have gone to servicing
debt will now be used to maintain the
Eskom infrastructure. This will hopefully
result in businesses spending less on
BUSINESS
The 2023 Budget speech
and the transport industry
‘The 2023 National
Budget made it clear
that in the short term,
all available additional
resources were being
utilised to mitigate
the impact of the
ongoing energy crisis,
and that means that
a variety of other
important initiatives
were unfortunately put
on the back burner.’
BUSINESS FLEET AFRICA | March 2023
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