Honourable Finance Minister, Enoch Godongwana
In an interview with the Mail & Guardian, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana explains why stabilising South Africa’s debt marks a turning point for the fiscus and why rail reform, infrastructure delivery and fiscal discipline will determine whether the shift can be sustained.
Finance minister Enoch Godongwana says South Africa’s debt trajectory has reached a turning point, but whether that shift holds will depend on faster infrastructure delivery, rail reform and continued fiscal discipline. In a one-on-one interview with the Mail & Guardian after Standard Bank’s annual Budget Forum in Johannesburg on Tuesday, Godongwana said stabilising the country’s debt marks an important milestone for the fiscus, but warned that sustaining it will depend on growth and execution rather than fiscal policy alone.
For Godongwana, the significance of stabilising the debt ratio is not simply a technical fiscal milestone. It determines how much of the national budget can be directed toward services and investment rather than interest payments.
“What does high debt mean for South Africans?” he said, pausing briefly before explaining.
“High debt means government is taking more money from taxes — which taxpayers pay — to service the debt. The effect of that is it crowds out the spending government should have done to pay for schools, education, health and so on.”
“So when debt peaks,” he continued, “it means we have reached a point where we have contained it. Moving forward, debt is going to go down, and there will be more money available to pay for basic services for our people.”
Treasury’s projection that the debt ratio stabilises this fiscal year marks a shift from more than a decade of steady deterioration. Borrowing rose sharply after the global financial crisis and accelerated again during the Covid pandemic, pushing debt service costs to one of the fastest growing components of public spending.
But earlier at the forum, Godongwana cautioned against interpreting the moment as a fiscal victory.
“Our target was the year in which we were to reach the peak, not the number,” he said.
The point, he argued, is direction rather than precision. Whether the ratio peaks slightly higher or lower matters less than whether the country can sustain a downward trajectory over time.
That trajectory, however, depends on growth.
When asked which reform could lift economic growth most quickly, Godongwana did not reach for a sweeping programme of structural change. Instead, he pointed to a specific constraint.
“For now, the major constraint is rail.”
The answer reflects Treasury’s reading of the current economic landscape. South Africa’s growth prospects remain closely tied to commodity exports.
“It is important to select rail in this particular context because there is a commodity boom,” he said.
“In the context of a commodity boom, if we do not have sufficient rail to transport goods to the ports, mining will not perform better.”
The constraint is therefore not geological. It is logistical.
“Commodities are one of the main beneficiaries of the boom, but without rail capacity, we cannot take full advantage of it.”
Freight rail inefficiencies have limited export volumes in recent years, weakening one of the economy’s most important growth channels. When trains do not move at capacity, commodities cannot reach ports quickly enough, reducing export earnings and narrowing the revenue base that supports fiscal consolidation.
Rail reform has therefore become central to the government’s economic strategy. Allowing greater private sector participation in freight corridors, improving operational efficiency and stabilising Transnet’s finances are all seen as critical steps in restoring export capacity.
At the forum, Godongwana framed the challenge more broadly.
“Macroeconomic stability on its own is a necessary but insufficient condition,” he said.
Stabilising debt helps lower borrowing costs and reduces the country’s risk premium in global markets. But stability alone does not generate growth. Structural reforms must unlock the supply side constraints that have held the economy back.
Rail sits at the centre of that agenda because of its direct connection to export revenue and industrial activity. Infrastructure delivery more broadly is the second test of credibility.
Over the next twelve months, what should South Africans expect to see that looks different?
“More work on the ground,” Godongwana said.
“Roads, stop and go construction where people are building roads, more construction of schools and clinics. That is what we expect to see over the next year, as well as housing.”
The emphasis on visible construction reflects a longstanding weakness in South Africa’s public investment cycle. Infrastructure budgets have often been undermined by procurement delays, underspending and uneven capacity within municipalities.
Allocations announced in budget speeches have not always translated into projects on the ground.
“Why am I confident?” he asked.
“It is because we are putting checks and balances in place to monitor that it does, in fact, happen.”
Improving oversight of infrastructure spending has therefore become central to sustaining confidence in the fiscal framework. Without visible delivery, stabilisation risks appearing technical rather than transformative.
The global environment complicates that effort. Just days after the Budget was tabled, the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran, sending oil prices higher and highlighting how quickly geopolitical shocks can reshape economic assumptions.
Asked how sustained fuel price increases would affect the government’s growth outlook, Godongwana acknowledged the vulnerability.
“My team is building a scenario plan to assess the implications, depending on the extent of the problem,” he said.
“But let me state what is given. Insofar as fuel is concerned, we are a price taker because we are not a producer of gas or oil.”
South Africa imports its fuel and therefore absorbs global price movements.
“For that reason, we are a price taker. Therefore, it is likely to have serious implications for us if the situation remains unresolved.”
Higher oil prices feed into inflation, which in turn influences interest rate decisions and borrowing costs across the economy. Slower growth would weaken revenue projections and place additional pressure on the debt trajectory Treasury has outlined.
During his remarks at the forum, Godongwana recalled how quickly global events can disrupt fiscal planning.
“In 2022 I delivered the Budget,” he said.
“I woke up the next morning and Dr Pieterse says, Minister, your numbers are gone.”
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had altered market conditions overnight.
“That is the environment in which we operate,” he said.
Domestic political pressure adds another layer of complexity.
“There is always going to be political pressure to spend more,” Godongwana acknowledged.
Asked how firmly he would defend the government’s spending limits, he framed the challenge as collective rather than personal.
“You cannot win that battle alone,” he said.
“The literature I have read on public finances suggests that you need to have the state on your side. Secondly, you need to win your Cabinet colleagues over so they understand the constrained environment in which all of you are operating.”
Fiscal discipline therefore depends on Cabinet alignment and institutional consensus. Debt stabilisation reduces the urgency of deterioration, but it does not remove competing demands for expanded spending.
Beyond fiscal consolidation and infrastructure reform, Godongwana also pointed to regulatory burdens as a practical constraint on enterprise growth.
“There are many registration requirements for small businesses, to register for this, to enrol for that, which are not necessary,” he said.
“People end up spending more time filling in documents than running their businesses.”
Reducing administrative friction would not require additional public spending, but it could remove barriers to entry in an economy where job creation increasingly depends on small and medium sized businesses.
Taken together, the priorities emerging from the interview reflect the next phase of Treasury’s economic strategy.
Stabilising debt has been the first task. The next will be sustaining growth through infrastructure investment, improving rail capacity so that export sectors can expand and ensuring that the fiscal discipline achieved in recent budgets is maintained.
Deputy finance minister Ashor Sarupen reinforced that broader shift during the forum discussion, describing the national budget less as a set of numbers than as a signal of credibility.
“For the longest time our fiscal narrative was dominated by deterioration — rising debt, rising debt service costs and narrowing space for investment,” he said.
“The national budget, at its core, ultimately, is a credibility document. It tells the markets whether we understand the binding constraints in our economy. It attempts to demonstrate to business whether our policies are coherent and it attempts to tell households whether government is serious about stability.”
Sarupen said the past three budgets have begun to shift that narrative.
Investor confidence has strengthened, borrowing costs have declined and macroeconomic stability has become more entrenched. But he cautioned that stabilisation alone will not deliver prosperity.
“Stabilisation is not the destination, it’s the platform,” he said.
“We are not trying to stabilise our way to prosperity. We know that we must grow there.”
Treasury’s projection that the debt ratio has reached its peak now shifts the debate from deterioration to execution.
Whether that turning point holds will depend on rail reform restoring export capacity, infrastructure programmes translating into visible construction and government maintaining fiscal discipline in a volatile global environment.
The numbers may have stabilised.
What matters now is whether the reforms behind them take hold.
Godongwana left the event to travel to London later on Tuesday for meetings with investors, part of Treasury’s effort to reinforce confidence in South Africa’s fiscal trajectory and the reforms aimed at unlocking growth.