Cut wasteful spending, tax and commit to no more SOE bailouts, IRR urges GNU

“Slashing waste and cutting taxes” is one way that the Government of National Unity could “restore trust between citizens and government”.

So says Institute of Race Relations (IRR) researcher Chris Patterson, drawing on proposals advanced in the IRR’s Blueprint for Growth: Slash Waste, Cut Taxes report of earlier this year. 

Patterson was responding to details given in Parliament this week of the scale of irregular, and fruitless and wasteful expenditure by government departments and state-owned enterprises (SOEs) over the past five years,

In a statement, the IRR pointed out that the Minister of Public Enterprises told Parliament last year that the taxpayer had forked out more than R270 billion in bailouts for SOEs over the past five years.

“In a presentation to Parliament this week, the Auditor-General’s Head of Audit, Bongani Ngoma, laid bare the state of irregular, and fruitless and wasteful expenditure by government departments and SOEs over the past five years:

Says Patterson: “South Africans are tired of paying taxes and getting bad or no services in return. The IRR’s solution to providing much-needed relief lies in its Blueprint for Growth: Slash Waste, Cut Taxes report, a solution that would simultaneously help the GNU improve its effectiveness and boost the country’s chances of lifting the economic growth rate and generating investment and jobs.”

The report proposes that government cut the VAT rate from the current 15% to 11.5%, which would put roughly R100 billion back into the pockets of South Africans, allowing them to spend it as they saw fit.

“Slashing waste and cutting taxes is one way that the GNU can restore trust between citizens and government. South Africans deserve a government that respects every Rand in the public purse,” Patterson concludes.

Read the Blueprint for Growth: Slash Waste, Cut Taxes report here.