South Africa’s budget: the numbers and future hang in the balance

You're invited to Corporate Network's February 13th briefing: South Africa's budget: the numbers and future hang in the balance.

On Feb 26th, Tito Mboweni, finance minister of South Africa, will table a budget in parliament. Political paralysis, stuttering economic growth, a yawning fiscal deficit and a ballooning debt-to-gdp ratio, among others, make the minister's job tough on any given day.

However, Moody's next credit-rating decision will turn significantly on Mr Mboweni's February budget; a downgrade into junk territory could see billions of rand flow out of the country's capital markets and interest payments crowd out even more spend in critical areas. All of these factors make Mr Mboweni's next budget perhaps the most important since 1994.

Gina Schoeman, chief economist at Citi, Isaah Mhlanga, chief economist at Alexander Forbes and Martyn Davies, dean at Deloitte Alchemy, will unpack the key issues informing, and what's likely to be contained in, the budget and, importantly, the implications for business leaders charting a course in choppy commercial waters.