South Africa’s Cabinet welcomes Moody’s upgrade of outlook

Cabinet has welcomed credit rating agency Moody’s upgrade of its outlook on South Africa from negative to stable.

In a statement released on Thursday, Cabinet said the decision affirms South Africa’s long-term foreign and local currency debt ratings at ‘Ba2’.

“The upgrade affirms the work of government to restore sustainability to the country’s public finances, which is supported by better-than-expected revenue collection.

“Revenue results for the period April 2021 to March 2022, showed that the South African Revenue Service collected more than R1.5 trillion. It represents a 25 percent improvement over the previous year and a 15 percent increase over the last year prior to the COVID-19 pandemic,” Cabinet said.

Government plans to use the additional revenue to accelerate debt stabilisation and address urgent social needs, promote job creation through the Presidential Youth Employment Initiative, and support the public health sector.

Meanwhile, Cabinet has expressed confidence in the process to complete the migration of citizens from analogue to digital television.

“The deferment on the Analogue Switch-off Date from 31 March to 30 June 2022 provides sufficient time to government to complete the installation of set-top boxes (STBs) for households that have registered timeously and are entitled to receive them before the analogue switch-off.

“The Department of Communications and Digital Technologies will ensure that all the 507 251 households that registered by 31 October 2021 are connected no later than 30 June 2022,” Cabinet said.

The 260 868 households that registered between 31 October 2021 and 10 March 2022 will be connected to their STBs by 30 September 2022.

Fourth South Africa Investment Conference (SAIC)

Cabinet also welcomed the successful conclusion of the fourth SAIC held at the Sandton Convention Centre, Johannesburg on Thursday, 24 March 2022, which saw domestic and international investors pledging new investments in the country.

“Our country received 80 new investment pledges totalling R332 billion. This takes the total investments pledged to R1.14 trillion, which not only represents 95 percent of our investment target but also places us firmly on the path to exceed our R1.2 trillion-investment target over five years.

“These investment commitments affirm our country’s status as an investment destination of choice,” Cabinet said.

So far, R316 billion of the commitments have been invested in 46 projects that have been completed and a further 57 projects that are still under construction.

“Cabinet notes the successes of past pledges as reported at the Conference, covering among others new production capacity in sectors as diverse as automobiles, food production, pharmaceuticals and digital centres.

“Cabinet called on all sectors of society to support these critical interventions to reverse the unemployment rate, which climbed to 35.3 percent, according to the Quarterly Labour Force Survey results released recently by Statistics South Africa.” – SAnews