Wed Jun 19 10:25:29 SAST 2013
Wed Jun 19 10:25:29 SAST 2013

Gordhan wants 'higher quality outcomes'

Oct 25, 2012 | Sapa | 3 comments

MESSAGE FROM THE MINISTER: "It’s important that we begin to understand the constraints we working with, that everything we want can’t be delivered at the same time"

South Africa has a sound fiscal framework and is not heading for disaster, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said on Thursday.

Briefing journalists ahead of delivering his medium-term budget policy statement in the National Assembly, he said the country would recover from the effects of global and local economic crises. “We are fiscally safe and not about to fall off any cliff,” said Gordhan.

The public purse had enough funds to meet the immediate needs of the country, but growth remained sensitive to global and internal factors.

He echoed the views of many economists, saying recovery from a recession could take anywhere from three to five years.

“South Africa finds itself in that context, and in addition to that we have our own challenge... mining strikes, the impact on production and on export from this country, on foreign exchange and revenue.” 

The minister said his Cabinet colleagues were acutely aware of the fiscal constraints, and that they had to learn to work with the money they were allocated.

“It’s important to... continue to enforce the idea that in difficult times we do not carry on with business as usual, and to ensure that where shifts in priority need to take place, they do take place,” Gordhan said.

“It’s important that we begin to understand the constraints we working with, that everything we want can’t be delivered at the same time.” 

He suggested it was time government upped its game in terms of implementing policy.

“We need to make more effective use of our resources to ensure that where we have large sums of money assigned, we get much higher quality outcomes than we’ve been getting up to now.”

Comments

Wed Jun 19 10:25:29 SAST 2013 ::
avatar image
Oct 26, 2012

Mrazane

Agreed comrade PG we do have a good fiscal framework, just bad custodians of it. Corruption and incompetence in government is our greatest enemy.
Report Abuse
avatar image
Nov 8, 2012

RobinX

Well Pravin, how about just getting the service we are entitled to from our errant ministers who are more adept at non-attendance and denial than anything else? That would be a great start.
Report Abuse
avatar image
Nov 13, 2012

MasheleJ

Much more can be done if'n wasting funds on frivilous projects ceases!

Obviously y'all don't understand

The analogy is that a husband and father must first care for the family needs and NOT live wide and large while his responsibilities merely exist on crumbs...

Any parent/political leadership who doesn't recognise these priorties as outlined above is simply, imho, akin to a wife-beater and child abuser...

And that is what patriotism is all about - take care of the country first and discard corrupt and opportunistic personal wealth goals!

These are the lenses through which history judges actions - and no! We [the world press] not gonna let you revise and rewrite to suit your public image issues!

Imho, it's certain y'all will be villified for your actions 'till the day the last trump sounds...
Report Abuse

Read all 3 comments

Your Subscription

The SowetanLIVE Network