{"id":869184,"date":"2026-08-06T13:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T11:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=869184"},"modified":"2026-08-06T12:52:35","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T10:52:35","slug":"south-africa-has-finally-turned-the-corner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/869184\/south-africa-has-finally-turned-the-corner\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa has finally turned the corner"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The National Treasury says that, from a fiscal standpoint, South Africa has turned the corner, helped by the South African Revenue Service’s bumper start to the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking at the Absa Consumer Conference this week, National Treasury Director General Duncan Pieterse painted a bright and optimistic picture of South Africa’s current fiscal trajectory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the decidedly negative and chaotic turn in global markets this year due to the United States-Iran War, South Africa’s economic metrics have moved in the opposite direction, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The country has run primary budget surpluses for three consecutive years\u2014each year growing\u2014fiscal targets and promises are being kept, and borrowing costs are declining.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Outside the fuel price shock caused by the war, the country’s headline inflation rates have been moving towards the Reserve Bank’s new 3% target, Pieterse said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Importantly, these trends have been acknowledged by global ratings agencies, which, contrary to global trends, have made positive rating moves on South Africa’s sovereign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

S&P upgraded South Africa\u2019s rating soon after the Medium Term Budget in November, becoming the first rating agency to do so in 16 years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moody\u2019s upgraded its outlook on South Africa in May, even after the US-Iran war broke out. Fitch then unexpectedly upgraded the rating without the usual step of putting it on a positive outlook first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This is an endorsement of our view that we are on track with the fiscal strategy, despite global upheavals,” Pieterse said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“From a fiscal perspective, we believe we have turned the corner.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SARS is raking in billions in tax<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
National Treasury Director-General, Duncan Pieterse<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Pieterse also highlighted the outstanding performance in tax collection so far, noting that revenue for the current financial year has exceeded expectations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This comes off the previous year, where a record R2 trillion in tax was collected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We have just released the monthly numbers for June, which is a big month for corporate income tax collections, and our revenue collections are running ahead of our Budget estimates for the year to date,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tax revenue collections over the first quarter of April to June 2026 grew at 9.2% compared to the same period a year ago, while provisional corporate tax collections are 25.2% higher, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This revenue growth has occurred despite much lower fuel levy collections due to the fuel levy relief in place over the same three-month period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“These robust revenue collections will help to buffer the fiscal framework. But we are also firmly focused on making government spending more efficient and more effective,” Pieterse said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said the government was implementing reforms and cutting underperforming programmes to direct money to other spending needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cost-cutting has yielded an initial R12 billion of savings in the latest fiscal year, but Pieterse said he expects this to ramp up over the medium term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other reforms aimed at saving costs include identifying ghost workers, verifying social grant recipients, and implementing operational improvements at state-owned companies like Eskom and Transnet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These, he said, will bring a ‘new era of fiscal sustainability’, and will establish a strong base for higher economic growth and job creation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“However, to take full advantage of this opportunity, fiscal credibility must be combined with the reforms required to support higher economic growth and investment and faster job creation,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This includes accelerating the reversal and repair of collapsing local governments and attracting more private-sector and foreign investment to the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We need higher rates of investment and growth. And we need to fix state capacity at local government level,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“None of this is easy. But the steps we are taking will create a more favourable environment for investment and for consumers in the coming years.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The National Treasury says that, from a fiscal standpoint, South Africa has turned the corner, helped by the South African Revenue Service’s bumper start to the year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":704955,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2085327790383960451","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2168376490649417","_sma_instagram_post_id":"18092004014420454","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[25910,3796],"class_list":["post-869184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-duncan-pieterse","tag-national-treasury"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869184","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=869184"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":869198,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869184\/revisions\/869198"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/704955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=869184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=869184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=869184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}