{"id":302648,"date":"2019-03-01T09:06:28","date_gmt":"2019-03-01T07:06:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=302648"},"modified":"2019-03-01T09:06:28","modified_gmt":"2019-03-01T07:06:28","slug":"at-the-rate-we-are-going-south-africa-will-run-out-of-money-by-2042-economist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/302648\/at-the-rate-we-are-going-south-africa-will-run-out-of-money-by-2042-economist\/","title":{"rendered":"At the rate we are going, South Africa will run out of money by 2042: economist"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The South African government can save vast sums of money by tightening its belt in just a few key ministries.<\/p>\n<p>This is according to the head of the Fiscal Cliff Study Group, Professor Jannie Rossouw, who was speaking to <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.702.co.za\/articles\/339505\/if-we-can-reduce-spending-by-all-these-35-ministries-we-can-save-r-1-billion\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">702&#8217;s<\/a><\/strong> Bongani Bingwa.<\/p>\n<p>In a parliamentary presentation on Wednesday (27 February), Rossouw and the Fiscal Cliff Study Group showed the effective costs of running 35 ministries in South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>Ministries are distinct from departments in South Africa and typically only refer to executive level members and staff.<\/p>\n<p>The group found that it costs the taxpayer R137 million to run the Ministry of Defence and Military Veterans.<\/p>\n<p>At the other end of the scale, the Ministry of Finance costs the taxpayer R4.4 million per annum.<\/p>\n<p>When looking at the breakdown of the costs, the group found that money was primarily being spent on expenses such as security, advisors and office staff.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Simply, we don&#8217;t understand this large disparity between these ministries,&#8221; said Rossouw. &#8220;We need to interrogate this, as the figures that we are seeing make no sense.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Rossouw added that if spending could be reduced across these 35 ministries to the same level as the ministry of finance, the country could save R1 billion.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We need a thorough investigation of what is going on in these ministries as we cannot waste a R1 billion of taxpayers money,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;South Africa is on the course to a fiscal cliff and if we do not change behaviour in our country very urgently we will then fall over this cliff.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Rossouw warned of the rising gap between revenue and spending on state wages, social assistance and debt service costs.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt the rate we are going, this country is going to run out of money by 2042. We cannot continue.\u201d<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/302534\/eskom-load-shedding-alert-till-the-end-of-the-weekend\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Eskom load shedding alert until the end of the weekend<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The South African government can save vast sums of money by tightening its belt in just a few key ministries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":118028,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[2139,13780,26],"class_list":["post-302648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-2139","tag-fiscal-cliff-study-group","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302648"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":302680,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302648\/revisions\/302680"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}