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04 March 2020 | Story Jean-Pierre Geldenhuys | Photo Supplied
geldenhuysJP
Jean-Pierre Geldenhuys.
As has been the case for the past five years, the latest (2020) budget paints another sobering picture of South Africa’s public finances and short-term economic outlook. Of particular concern is that this budget does not project that the government debt ratio will stabilise in the medium term (by 2022/23), which means that the current fiscal policy trajectory is unsustainable (which National Treasury acknowledges in the Budget Review). This makes a rating downgrade by Moody’s in March all but inevitable. 

In the budget that was tabled on Wednesday, the budget deficit is projected to be 6,3% in 2019/2020, while increasing to 6,8% the following year, before gradually declining to a still unsustainable 5,7% of the GDP by 2022/23. These large budget deficits contributed to large projected increases in the government debt-to-GDP ratio: this ratio is projected to increase from about 62% in 2019/20 to about 72% by 2022/23. To understand the extent of the deterioration of South Africa’s public finances over the past 12 months, it should be noted that this ratio was projected in the 2019 budget to increase to about 60% by 2022/23.

Burger and Calitz (2020) show that the government debt-to-GDP ratio can be stabilised (and fiscal sustainability can be restored) if: the gap between real interest rates and real GDP growth is reduced, and/or if the primary balance (government revenues minus non-interest government spending) is adequate to avoid an increase in the debt ratio. They then show that the debt ratio has increased over the past decade because the (implied) real interest rate on government debt has increased and the real growth rate has decreased and government ran large primary deficits, at a time when large primary surpluses were required to avoid increases in the debt ratio. 

Between 1998 and 2007, the debt ratio was reduced from just under 50% to just under 30%. This period (especially from 2002 onwards) was characterised by (relatively) high economic growth. Fast economic growth is crucial to stabilising the debt ratio and restoring fiscal sustainability. National Treasury (NT) has proposed structural reforms (aimed at reducing regulatory burdens and backlogs and increasing competitiveness in the economy) to stimulate private sector investment and growth. Given the constraints that continued load shedding will put on South African growth in the near future, as well as projected slower growth in the economies of our main trading partners, and the uncertainties associated with disruptions wrought by the coronavirus outbreak, it remains to be seen if private sector investment will increase and stimulate growth (available evidence in any event suggests that private sector investment tends to follow, not lead, economic growth). 

With growth likely to remain slow, lower real interest rates and lower budget deficits are required to reduce the debt ratio and restore fiscal sustainability. These interest rates will more than likely increase if Moody’s decides to (finally) downgrade its rating of South African government debt.

With low economic growth and high real interest rates, stabilisation of the public debt ratio means that the budget deficit must be reduced. To reduce the budget deficit, government can: (i) increase taxes, (ii) decrease spending and (iii) increase taxes and reduce spending. Given that fiscal policy is unsustainable in South Africa, it is surprising that NT decided against increasing taxes (other than customary annual increases in the fuel levy and excise taxes) in this budget – many analysts were expecting some combination of higher personal income tax, VAT, and company taxes. As reasons for not raising taxes, it cites low expected economic growth, and that most of the efforts to reduce the budget deficit in the past five years have been centred on using tax increases. Even more puzzling, the budget granted real tax relief to taxpayers, as income tax scales were adjusted by more than expected inflation. 

All efforts to rein in the budget deficit therefore rely on government spending reductions. To this end, NT is proposing to reduce government spending by about R260 billion over the next three years. This reduction in spending is comprised of a R160 billion reduction in the wage bill, and a further R100 billion reduction in programme baseline reductions. At the same time, as a proposal for wage cuts, government is allocating even more money to prop up the balance sheets of many SoCs, with R60 billion allocated to Eskom and SAA (while the Minister referred to the Sword of Damocles when referring to SAA in his speech, a more apt analogy for government’s response to the financial crises facing many of its SoCs might rather be the paradox of Buridan’s ass). While government has announced plans for the restructuring of Eskom and has placed SAA in business rescue, so far there is no feasible consensus plan to address Eskom’s mounting debts and dire financial situation, which poses a systemic risk to the South African economy. 

Regarding the proposed reductions to the wage bill, NT believes that its target can be achieved through downward adjustments to cost-of-living adjustments, pay progression and other benefits. Furthermore, the Budget Review also states that pay scales at public entities and state-owned companies (SOCs) will be aligned with those in the public service to curtail wage bill growth and ‘excessive’ salaries at these entities. We are also told that government will discuss the options for achieving its desired wage bill reduction with unions. Given the precariousness of the public finances, and the understandable objections of workers and unions, one must ask why these discussions were not already in full swing by the time that the budget was tabled? 

Regarding the proposed cuts to government programmes, NT notes that it tried to limit these to underperforming or underspending programmes, and that the largest cuts will be in the human settlement and transport sectors. But, as NT acknowledges, any cuts to government programmes will negatively affect the economy and social services; the budget speech also states that the number of government employees has declined since 2011/12, which also affects the provision of public and social services adversely (the Minister explicitly mentioned increased classroom sizes, full hospitals, and too few police officers during his speech). 

Apart from the proposed spending cuts, the proposed allocation of spending is unsurprising and reflects long-standing government priorities: spending on basic education, post-school education and training, health and social protection takes up 13,6%, 6,7%, 11,8% and 11,3%, respectively. Increases in social grants range between 4 and 4,7%, which means small real increases in most social grants (only if inflation remains subdued). Worryingly, debt service costs are expected to take up more than 11% of total government spending (and is projected to exceed health spending by 2022/23). These costs are projected to grow by more than 12% by 2022/23 (almost double the growth in the fastest growing non-interest expenditure category). These figures vividly illustrate how a high and increasing debt-to-GDP ratio limits the scope for increased spending on important public and social services. 

Unless fiscal sustainability and the  balance sheets of SoCs are restored, the scope for the government to increase spending to combat poverty, rising inequality, and unemployment will be severely limited – as would the scope for countercyclical fiscal policy, should the local economy again slide into recession. The stakes are high, and the cost of indecisiveness is increasing.

This article was written by Jean-Pierre Geldenhuys, lecturer in the Department of Economics and Finance in the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences 

News Archive

Position statement: Recent reporting in newspapers
2014-10-03

 

You may have read reports in two Afrikaans newspapers, regarding recent events at the University of the Free State (UFS). Sadly, those reports are inaccurate, one-sided, exaggerated and based not on facts, but on rumour, gossip and unusually personal attacks on members of the university management.

Anyone who spends 10 minutes on our Bloemfontein Campus would wonder what the so-called ‘crisis’ is about.

We are left with no choice other than to consider legal action, as well as the intervention of the South African Press Ombudsman, among other steps, to protect the good name of the institution and the reputation of its staff. No journalist has the right to launch personal and damaging attacks on a university and its personnel, whatever his or her motives, without being fair and factual. In this respect, the newspapers have a case to answer.

But here are the facts in relation to the reports:

  1. No staff member, whether junior or senior, is ever suspended without hard evidence in hand. Such actions are rare, and when done, are preceded by careful reviews of our Human Resource Policies, labour legislation and both internal and external legal advice. Then, and only then, is a suspension affected. A suspension, moreover, does not mean you are guilty and is a precautionary action to allow for the disciplinary investigation and process to be conducted, especially where there is a serious case to answer.
  2. At no stage was the Registrar instructed to leave the university; this is patently false and yet reported as fact. We specifically responded to the media that the Registrar does outstanding work for the university and that it is our intention for him to remain as our Registrar through the end of his contract in 2016.
  3. The Rector does not make decisions by himself. Senior persons, from the position of Dean, upwards, are appointed by statutory and other senior committees of the university and finally approved by Council. No rector can override the decision of a senior committee, and this has not happened at the UFS even in cases where the Rector serves as Chair of that committee. The impression of heavy-handed management at the top insults all our committee structures, including the Institutional Forum – the widest and most inclusive of stakeholder bodies at a university – which reports directly to Council on fairness and compliance of selection processes.
  4. In the case of senior appointments, Council makes the final decision. Council fully supports the actions taken on senior appointments, including a recent senior suspension. The fact that one Council member resigns just before the end of his term, whatever the real reason for this action, does not deter from the fact that the full Council in its last sitting approved the major staffing decisions brought before it. The image therefore that the two newspapers try to create of great turmoil and distress at the university, is completely unfounded.

Even if we wanted to, the university obviously cannot provide details about staffing decisions, especially disciplinary actions in process, since the rights of individuals should be protected in terms of the Human Resource Policies and procedures of the UFS. But that does not give any newspaper the right to speculate or state as fact that which is based on rumour or gossip, or to slander senior personnel of the university. For these reasons, we have been forced to seek legal remedy and correction as a matter of urgency.

Make no mistake, underlying much of the criticism of the university has been a distress about transformation at the UFS; in particular, the perception is created that white colleagues are losing their jobs. The evidence points in the opposite direction. Our progress with equity has been slow and we lag far behind most of the former white universities; that is a fact. More than 90% of our professors are white; most of our senior appointments at professorial level and as heads of department are still overwhelmingly white. Reasonable South Africans would agree that our transformation still has a long way to go and only the mean-spirited would contend otherwise. But based on the two Afrikaans newspaper reports, an impression is left of the aggressive rooting out of white colleagues.

In the past few years the academic standard of the university has significantly improved. We now have the highest academic pass rates in years, in part because we raised the academic standards for admission four years ago. We now have the highest rate of research publications, and among the highest national publication rate of scholarly books, in the history of the UFS. We have one of the most stable financial situations of any university in South Africa, with a strong balance sheet and growing financial reserves way beyond what we had before. We now attract top professors from around the country and other parts of the world, and we have the highest number of rated researchers, through the National Research Foundation, than ever before. And after the constant turmoil of a number of years ago, we now have one of the most stable campuses in South Africa. Those are the facts.

The UFS is also regarded around the world as a university that has become a model of transformation and reconciliation in the student body. The elections of our Student Representative Council are only the most visible example of how far we have come in our leadership diversity. Not a week goes by in which other universities, nationally and abroad, do not come to Kovsies to consult with us on how they can learn from us and deepen their own transformations, especially among students.

Rather than focus on what more than one senior journalist, in reference to the article in Rapport of 21 September 2014, rightly called ‘a hatchet job’ on persons and the university, here are the objective findings of a recent survey of UFS stakeholders: 92% endorse our values; 77% agree with our transformation; 78% believe we are inclusive; and 78% applaud our overall reputation index.  Those are very different numbers from a few years ago when the institution was in crisis.

This is our commitment to all our stakeholders: we will continue our model of inclusive transformation which provides opportunities for study and for employment for all South Africans, including international students and colleagues. We remain committed to our parallel-medium instruction in which Afrikaans remains a language of instruction; we are in fact the only medical school in the country that offers dual education and training in both Afrikaans and English for our students - not only English. We provide bursaries and overseas study opportunities to all our students, irrespective of race. And our ‘future professors’ programme is richly diverse as we seek the academic stars of the future.

We are not perfect as a university management or community. Where we make mistakes, we acknowledge them and try to do better the next time round. But we remain steadfast in our goal of making the UFS a top world university in its academic ambitions and its human commitments.

END

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