South Africa: Eskom in the Spotlight Amid Stage 6 Rolling Blackouts, but Finance Minister Godongwana's To-Do List Is Long

analysis

Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana must put the rands and cents to President Cyril Ramaphosa's State of the Nation Address political promises. It's an unenviable task - without political glamour and without any control of how Cabinet colleagues actually spend their departmental allocations.

Rooftop solar subsidies for businesses and households are a tick in the Budget announcements. President Cyril Ramaphosa in his State of the Nation Address (Sona), and reply earlier this month, twice said his finance minister would announce the details - come Budget - in what appeared to be the executive's spin on seamless operations.

A rejigged bounceback scheme to allow small business favourable financing terms to shore up against the rolling blackouts? Pencil it in for Wednesday, given that Ramaphosa in his Sona speech said National Treasury was working on adjustments to the scheme first launched during the Covid-19 lockdowns.

An extension of the monthly R350 social relief of distress grant, a definite tick as announced by Ramaphosa earlier in February - "[W]e will continue the social relief of distress grant... " - as part of the presidential comments on social protection. The rising cost-of-living crisis that's bashing the vulnerable, who increasingly must decide between food or transport...

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