All eyes on Godongwana’s budget

The speech comes amid high unemployment rates, continuous power cuts, rising living costs and a tough economic environment.

The business sector has urged the minister to continue working on cutting unnecessary expenditure.

At the same time, Economist Dr Sean Muller from the University of Johannesburg believes that treasury is  unlikely to grant more bailouts to struggling state owned enterprises.

Godongwana is expected to table a harsh expenditure reduction budget speech.

Muller says Eskom was already committed to a large cash injections in recent budgets.

"I doubt that there will be more bailouts, but it is important to note that the treasury had already committed to a very large fiscus transfer for Eskom of R254bn  over three  years and that is effectively a mechanism for them to take the Eskom debt on the national balance sheet.

“It is partly motivated by the desire to give Eskom more financial room to invest in its infrastructure, there are pros and cons with that approach but that's what's going on," he says.

However, he believes Transnet is likely to get some form of cash injection. 

"My suspicion is that Transnet may well get some funding at some point but the terms of that funding will have to be agreed first," says Muller.

Godongwana is expected to table the budget in the National Assembly at 2 pm.

ALSO READ