PARLIAMENT - National Treasury is reportedly preparing a draft of cost-cutting measures as its coffers run dry.
These include getting departments and other sectors of government to reduce their spending, by placing a moratorium on new hires and finding alternative sources to fund salary increases.
Economist, Chris Hattingh believes this is a step in the right direction.
He said, "we can't just print money, we can't just print ourselves out of this problem, when you've got more money-chasing, less goods in the economy, you then effectively the value of your rands, of your units of currency, that in turn means the potential for inflation or hyper inflation to take off, and that will likely the worst case scenario for South Africans, especially poor to middle income South Africans whose money is not going as far already as it used to before."
"So we saddle them and future generations with that burden if we can't get a real cap on spending. There is some low-hanging fruit, you could look at cabinet spending, VIP services, you could also look at the public sector wage bill and especially the state owned entities, there are opportunities to get a handle on ineffective and wasteful expenditure but whether those decisions are going to be made in the context of the election next year is another question."