Business Tech Africa invited Garth Rossiter, Chief Risk Officer at Lula, and Thomas McKinnon, Chief Growth Officer at Lula to dissect the implications and impact of the budget, presented in parliament today by Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana.
Listen to The Podcast Here:
Key Quotes:
Garth Rossiter: “One of the big reasons for the increase is to is to allow for a three-year wage deal for government, that’s in an environment where SMEs are cutting staff, they’re having to let go of a number of their employees, they’re not able to give increases to employees, but yet they’re being told they’re to pay more in that to pay for government salaries.
“That for me is especially unpalatable, in an environment where the average public sector salary is over 40,000 rand versus a private sector salary average, which is 26,000 rand or around that sort of level. So it’s pretty tone deaf as far as I’m concerned in terms of the environment businesses operating in”.
Thomas McKinnon: “There isn’t really an answer to growth in the budget, you know, averaging 1.8% growth over the next three years is, … pretty dismal. I mean, when you compare other developing markets, you know, we need to be growing better”.
