SOE bailouts take huge chunk off debt servicing budget

SAfm — Government says tax revenue is expected to be significantly lower than the previous estimates. It says low growth and a weakened SARS have led to the 63-point-3 billion Rand projected revenue shortfall for 2019/2020- this is significantly higher than the revised shortfall of 52 billion Rands published in the 2019 Medium Term Budget Policy Statement. Government also says debt is unlikely to stabilise over the medium term- while debt servicing costs now absorb 15-point-2 percent of the main budget revenue. This is currently standing at 229 billion Rands- largely as a result of bailouts from financially distressed State Owned Entities.