SOUTH AFRICA: Mid‐Term Budget Statement.

The reduction in the civil service wage bill remains a government priority, while debt service costs on the other hand will continue to escalate, with debt service costs rising to R365.8bn in 2024/25 from R162.6bn in 2017/18. Gross government debt is therefore expected to peak at 78.1% of GDP in 2025/26 and decline thereafter, which should allow debt-service costs to fall below 22% of main budget revenue by 2026/27. In the 2021 MTBPS the revised growth for revenue in fiscal year 2021/22 is now 18.9%, while the 2020/21 revenue contraction has been revised to 7.8%. [Extracted from the article]