JOHANNESBURG, Oct. 29 (Xinhua) -- South African Finance Minister Tito Mboweni was expected to address the country's declining revenue collections when delivering the Medium-Term Budget speech, said experts on Tuesday.
The speech, scheduled for Wednesday, will examine the current economic outlook of South Africa and provide a framework for next year's budget, as the country is grappling with an ailing economy and the state-owned entities are struggling without billions of dollars of bailouts.
"On one hand he will show us how the revenue will underperform because of slower economic growth," said Jannie Rossouw, an economics professor at Wits University. "We will see how he is adjusting expenditure to take cognizance of lower revenue rates due to lower taxes."
South Africa's largest labor federation Cosatu also expected Mboweni to devise a comprehensive economic strategy aimed at resolving several problems, said its spokesperson Sizwe Pamla.
"Our economy is barely growing at 1 percent, and our most important state-owned enterprise Eskom is on the verge of collapse and threatens to bring down not only the state but the entire economy," said Pamla.
A bailout worth 59 billion South African rands (about 4 billion U.S. dollars) for Eskom was recently approved in parliament.
"Eskom is a very serious expenditure of the government, so Mboweni must tell us how things will be improved there," said Rossouw.
