Free State University chancellor Bonang Mohale reflects on the loan given to the country to fight the coronavirus.
The African Development Bank has approved a R5 billion emergency recovery loan to help South Africa’s efforts in its fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
Africa’s most industrialised economy was in recession even before COVID-19 started ravaging its economy.
RELATED: Development Bank of SA: We expect taxpayers – not SAA – to repay the R3.5bn loan
Forecasts are now for gross domestic product to shrink by at least 7% this year, and a budget deficit of around 15%
of GDP.
Bongani Bingwa chats to Free State University chancellor Bonang Mohale to reflect on the loan.
When the president announced the unprecedented R500 billion COVID-19 economic stimulus package, we knew that we don’t currently have the money and about R130 billion was going to come from reprioritising from the approved budget.
Bonang Mohale, Chancellor – University of Free State
He says the supplementary budget by the finance minister suggested that the government would be functioning on a 14% deficit largely due to the R300 billion reduction in tax revenues.
Until we start addressing the deep structural weaknesses of the economy as well as the poor educational outputs, we are really worrying about grammar, the economy was declining long before COVID-19. COVID-19 has exposed these deep structural inequalities and has given us a chance to transform the economy.
Bonang Mohale, Chancellor – University of Free State
Listen below to the full conversation:
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Article source: https://www.702.co.za/articles/390744/african-development-bank-approves-r5-billion-to-sa-to-fight-covid-19