Tag: National Treasury

In an exciting recent development, National Treasury published a set of draft Tax and Revenue Law Amendment Bills, together with accompanying Explanatory Memorandums thereto, for public comment. These draft bills contained a host of robust proposed changes to tighten certain loopholes and inconsistencies in South Africa’s tax laws.

In a significant move towards enhancing efficiency, transparency, and accountability in public procurement processes, the gazetted Public Procurement Act of 2024 (Act) aims to revolutionise the way government entities engage in procurement activities.

While the President has signed the National Health Insurance (NHI) into law, the bean counters at National Treasury have yet to start looking for their excel sheets needed to ensure the NHI is fully costed. The first reason is due to the confusion of objective versus political ideology. The NHI has been touted as introducing “universal healthcare coverage” (UHC).

Gone are the days of box-ticking. The Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) has recently imposed administrative sanctions on two financial services providers (FSPs), in each case for failing to comply with certain provisions of the Financial Intelligence Centre Act (FICA). 

In 2020, the National Treasury published for public comment a draft Conduct of Financial Institutions Bill, as an update of its draft two years earlier. This 2020 draft bill aims, ambitiously, at revising the separate laws which regulate the conduct of financial institutions of all kinds, be they banks, insurers, pension funds or medical schemes; and which regulate the conduct of providers of financial advisory, administration or payment services.

Minister of Finance Enoch Godongwana delivered his Budget Speech 2024 to Parliament and the nation on 21 February 2024. A key announcement was that tax rates will not be increased in 2024/2025, as previously signalled by the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) 2023, to generate the extra R15 billion needed in revenue.

Catherine Wijnberg | CEO | Fetola | mail me | The 2024 budget speech was a fine balancing act between stabilising the country’s debt burden...

Committing to maintaining sustainable public finances proves to be challenging amidst a geopolitically tense global environment, less favourable growth in the global economy, and persistent energy and logistics obstacles locally. These factors collectively jeopardise government revenue growth, widen the budget deficit, and increase the country's debt ratio.

The 2024 Budget was tabled to Parliament on 21 February 2024 by South African Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana. Tax Pocket Guide Honourable Speaker, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula His Excellency,...

With the budget speech being delivered in an election year, I expect to hear populist promises and over-optimism which is geared more to voters than the financial markets. We will need to scrutinise the numbers coming out of the budget very carefully to see if Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana’s budget proposals are viable and achievable given the country’s high debt burden and strained tax base.