2025 SA Budget Speech Roundtable Discussion
Please join us face-to-face on Thursday, 20 February 2025 at 18:00 (SAST) as we tackle the 2025 budget speech by South Africa's (SA) Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana. This roundtable discussion will be led by UCT GSB's Simi Siwisa.
Event information
Despite the optimism surrounding the Government of National Unity (GNU), South Africa’s economy remains under strain—marked by stagnant growth, high unemployment, and persistent poverty. For this optimism to translate into meaningful economic outcomes, our country must commit to continued structural reform and the rebuilding of critical infrastructure.
In the 2024 Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS), National Treasury began redirecting attention to infrastructure investment and financing. Now, as we approach the 2025 budget announcement, we’re eager to see how these efforts will be expanded.?
Are new proposals for poverty alleviation and infrastructure development on the horizon?
- How will troubled State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) reconcile austerity with structural reform and reliable service delivery?
- What impact will the GNU’s policies have on South Africa’s fiscal and economic trajectory?
- Will there be changes in medical aid tax credits to support National Health Insurance (NHI) funding?
- Could we see a “creeping” wealth tax on high-net-worth individuals, coupled with increases in inheritance, estate, and luxury import taxes?
- Are there new measures on the way to address the rising cost-of-living crisis?
This roundtable aims to discuss these pressing issues, providing a platform for dialogue on how the budget will impact our economy and society, and what measures we can anticipate.
Speakers
Sean Gossel
Professor Sean Gossel is the Deputy Director: Curriculum at the UCT GSB. His teaching and research expertise lies in the areas of financial economics and financial globalisation. He lectures Public Sector Finance, on the MCom (Development Finance) programme, Macroeconomics on the EMBA, and the Emerging Markets Economic Development elective on the MBA programme. His lectures seek to position finance and macroeconomics in a historical, emerging market, and financial globalization context. This focus carries over into his research and supervision.
Sean’s research has followed two related strands. The first focusses on the intersection between FDI and democratization in Sub-Saharan Africa while the second arises from student supervision and investigates topics relating to Sub-Saharan Africa’s financial economic development. To date Sean has published 21 articles in highly ranked international journals and a chapter in an internationally published book. He is currently working on four journal articles and completing a book on FDI in Sub-Saharan Africa. Sean is also a peer reviewer for over 50 international journals, an external examiner for master’s and PhD theses, and regularly writes opinion pieces for the popular press.
Professor Haroon Bhorat
Director, DPRU, School of Economics, UCT
He currently serves on the Presidential Economic Advisory Council (PEAC), established by President Ramaphosa to generate new ideas for economic growth, job creation and addressing poverty in South Africa. Prof. Bhorat holds the DST/NRF SARChI Chair in Economic Growth, Poverty and Inequality Research. He is a Non-resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and at the UNU World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER); a Research Fellow at IZA (the Institute for the Study of Labour in Bonn); is a member of the UCT College of Fellows, and was a Cornell University Research Fellow.
Serving in a variety of public roles ranging from high-level advisory work for government departments and multi-lateral institutions, to giving public lectures and seminar presentations at the world’s leading universities (including for example Columbia, Cornell, Yale and Oxford), Prof. Bhorat’s ability to seamlessly switch between conducting hard empirical analysis and providing evidence-based policy advice that is accessible to a broader audience, has had a direct impact on the discipline. His research feeds into policy decisions and pronouncements at the highest level, including Cabinet memoranda, State of the Nation Addresses and legislative promulgation. His work has been hugely influential in policy making in respect of poverty, inequality and labour market issues in South Africa.
Sisamkele Kobus
Economics Analyst
She joined the firm as a graduate within the Young Investment Professionals Programme.
Sisamkele has a Bachelor of Commerce (Economics and Finance) degree from the University of Cape Town. She is a CFA® Charterholder.