Business considers the March 15 Budget a resounding success, reports Reg Rumney
Business response to the first Budget of the Government of National Unity was overwhelmingly positive.
A survey of 100 of South Africa’s top business people, undertaken by the Community Agency for Social Enquiry (Case) just after the Budget of the GNU, shows almost three quarters of the business people polled viewed the Budget positively.
White business people were the most positive (78 percent) of those polled. According to Case, many white business people (63 percent) thought Finance Minister Chris Liebenberg’s Budget indicated “responsible and fiscally disciplined government” which valued “fairness and equality”.
Fewer black business people (57 percent) were as positive, more of them were unsure of its effectiveness.
Only 23 percent of black business people mentioned a responsible and fair government as the basis of their positive assessment. “They tended,” say the Case researchers, “to opt rather for the explanation that the government was now properly focusing on social spending, and addressing the needs and grievances of the poor and unemployed.”
Seventy-eight percent of the overall business sample — and 93 percent of business women — thought enough had been done to reduce the Budget deficit. This figure — the difference between budgeted government spending and tax revenue, which has to be borrowed — is a symbol of fiscal responsibility.
Those who did not agree that enough had been done thought that cutting the public service as well as the defence budget would have helped to reduce the deficit.
A low six percent of all business people consider too high taxation a negative, though more black business people came to this conclusion (14 percent) than whites (six percent). Similarly a low percentage consider personal tax too high, perhaps indicating relief that no super-tax or wealth tax was introduced.
White and black business people differed strikingly on whether the emphasis in tax policy should shift from direct tax, chiefly personal income tax and company tax, to indirect tax, chiefly Value Added Tax. Sixty-six percent of white respondents favoured more indirect tax, as opposed to only 17 percent of black respondents.