As financial pressure mounts on the cash-strapped government, all eyes will be on finance minister Tito Mboweni when he delivers his emergency supplementary budget tomorrow.

Mboweni is due to unveil the budget at 3pm tomorrow before a virtual National Assembly.

This comes as Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula grapples with a taxi strike in Gauteng over what the taxi bosses say is insufficient aid, and the National Treasury faces pleas from the Department of Social Development to enlarge the sum available for relief.

Positive cases rose by 4 288 to 101 590, and 61 deaths took the toll to 1 991.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) said yesterday Mboweni’s supplementary budget would be the most significant in South Africa’s recent history.

DA spokesperson on finance Geordin Hill-Lewis, joined at a press briefing yesterday by interim party leader John Steenhuisen, deputy finance spokesperson Dion George, and DA policy head Gwen Ngwenya, said negligible economic growth and high levels of debt had obliterated South Africa’s ability to save in times of plenty, and thus spend in a time of crisis.

‘In short, South Africa has lost resilience. Businesses are vulnerable, families are vulnerable, government is vulnerable. Many people have lost their lives and livelihoods, who need not have. There is no doubt that the ANC-led government will table this emergency budget with blood on its hands,’ he said

The DA called on the government to cut the public sector wage bill; sell or shut down state-owned enterprises that could not remain viable without state bailouts; end power utility Eskom’s monopoly and open the electricity market to competition; and reject expropriation without compensation, National Health Insurance, prescribed assets and nationalisation of the South African Reserve Bank.

It said spending should be aligned to interventions with the most significant multiplier effects, and should reduce high levels of poverty and improve government efficiency.

Meanwhile, Transport Minister Mbalula told taxi bosses that the government could not pay more than the R1 billion it had already put up to support the industry during the lockdown, and said yesterday’s strike was counterproductive.

The Department of Transport had offered taxi owners R5 000 each in relief, to be distributed by the South African Revenue Service (SARS), but taxi owners called for R20 000 each.

News24 reported that hundreds of taxi drivers went on strike in Gauteng on Monday, leaving thousands – including scores of health workers – stranded.

The South African National Civic Organisation in Gauteng said its members ‘vehemently support’ the taxi shutdown, and ‘strongly urge the minister to approach treasury to think twice and do the honourable and be fair to Santaco (sic)’.

The Department of Social Development said it had no other option but to turn to National Treasury to give effect to a High Court ruling compelling government to include asylum seekers and special permit holders in its Covid-19 relief grant.

This came after a rough estimate showed it would need R700 million to successfully pay out the R350 grant, which is part of government’s emergency measures to provide some relief for people not receiving any form of assistance or income as the country battles the coronavirus.

In other virus-related news

  • More than nine million people have now been infected with the coronavirus worldwide, according to AFP, drawing on official sources. More than half of the 9 000 091 cases are in Europe and the United States, Europe having recorded 2 537 451 and the United States 2 281 903;
  • The World Health Organisation (WHO) said the number of cases worldwide had doubled since May 16 and more than a million new cases had been recorded in the past seven days. The WHO recorded the biggest one-day increase in coronavirus cases, with the Americas responsible for most of the new infections. The WHO said more than 183 000 new cases were reported in the past 24 hours. Most – more than 50 000 – came from Brazil, followed by the US and India;
  • Health officials in South Korea said they believed the country was going through a second wave of coronavirus, despite recording relatively low numbers. The country had been a success story in dealing with Covid-19, but now expects the pandemic to continue for months. Head of the Korea Centers for Disease Control (KCDC), Jung Eun-kyeong, was cited by the BBC as saying that, since May, clusters of new cases had grown, including outbreaks at nightclubs in the capital, Seoul. Officials on Monday said that over the last 24 hours, 17 new infections had been recorded, from different clusters in large offices and warehouses;
  • Police reinforcements were sent to maintain a coronavirus quarantine on a tower block in the German city of Göttingen after violence erupted there on Saturday. Some 700 people were placed in quarantine, but about 200 who attempted to get out clashed with police. Residents attacked police with fireworks, bottles and metal bars. In Berlin as well as Göttingen, whole apartment blocks have been quarantined after residents were infected. People’s homes have also been fenced off, with police preventing residents from going outside; and
  • China reported nine new cases in Beijing over the past 24 hours, down from 22 the previous day, and the first time it has been in single figures for more than ten days. More than 230 cases have been recorded in the recent Beijing ‘spike’. The outbreak was linked to a large food market, and triggered lockdowns and travel bans in neighbourhoods across the city.

author