Economy, infrastructure set to top agenda at Cabinet Lekgotla
Economic growth, infrastructure development, immigration, and fiscal matters are among some of the issues expected to top the agenda at the Cabinet Lekgotla which kicked off on Monday morning.
The gathering of ministers, their deputies, premiers and directors-general is convened by the President at the Sefako Makgatho Presidential Guesthouse in Tshwane.
Minister in the Presidency Mondli Gungubele briefed the media ahead of the meeting, highlighting the global economic interventions such as interest rate hikes to mitigate against rising inflation and the impacted on emerging economiess.
Gungubele says they will also discuss the latest quarterly GDP data that is expected to be released by Statistics South Africa on Tuesday.
“There’s the release of the economic stats tomorrow, we don’t know how they are going to tell the story. One of the reasons we are concerned is that top economies have tightened their financial stance in terms of interest rates, because of the inflation. Generally, the stats indicate a downside performance in the economy, so we are going to look at that and how it affects us.”
Infrastructure remains an integral part of the country’s economic recovery plan with four of the state’s major entities, Eskom, Transnet, Telkom, and Prasa recently estimating the cost of economic sabotage such as cable theft, battery, and vandalism at more than R100 billion.
Gungubele says the lekgotla will also review performance in the 2050 infrastructure plans, as infrastructure has become the government’s area of focus.
“The president has spoken about the blended finance, because we have financial constraints, we needed the private sector to come on board. We have that good relationship with the private sector where there is commitment to fund major projects as long as certain requirements are met.
“As you know the president made the pronouncement of about R21 billion infrastructure projects to take of this year, and 96 pipeline projects to be under process.”
The minister says in addition to seeking ways to find alignment between government spending and the economy, they’ll be looking at the state’s capacity to deal with corruption and other key challenges in society such as the fight against crime and efforts to enhance public safety and security on the back of the recent spate of tavern mass shootings.
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