THIS YEAR’s Budget, coming during a crucial elections period, and three decades of the ANC rule, was expected to excite keen attention from budget analysts, market watchers, and politicians, including foreign financial institutions to which both the Department of Finance and the SA Reserve Bank (SARB) endear themselves greatly.
Indeed, as expected, this austerity Budget was received warmly by the so-called markets, save for murmurings of discontent from the usual quarters of society known as leftists. The rand behaved.
A credible austerity Budget, so it is said, is one that elicits warm cheers from bond, forex and similar markets and, more importantly, from international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), rating agencies etc.
These institutions are…
