STAFF REPORTER
THE DA has slammed Minister of Finance Tito Mboweni’s decision to use some of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan to pay the salaries of government employees.
Mboweni’s intention to spend the loan money on salaries became public on Friday after the DA submitted a parliamentary question relating to the R70 billion IMF loan granted to South Africa in July.
In a statement, DA MP and Shadow Minister for Public Service and Administration Leon Schreiber said Mboweni appears to have abandoned the position he took in his February Budget presentation to rationalise the unsustainable public wage bill, and was now willing to use debt to finance salary payments to government employees.
Earlier, Mboweni, responding to a parliamentary question on whether any portion of the $4.3 billion loan granted to South Africa by the IMF will be used to pay the salaries of public servants, conceded that “the loan receipts (or disbursements) will form part of the National Revenue Fund to be used to support existing government programmes, which could include salary payments.”
“This sudden change by Mboweni from his avowed position of prudential public financial management to debt fuelled public spending is hardly surprising,” said Schreiber.
“It is now public knowledge that his economic reform crusade has been rejected outright by his Cabinet colleagues who have repeatedly shown a willingness to send South Africa over the fiscal cliff through unrestrained spending.”
The DA has already written to the IMF to register its strong objection to Mboweni’s intention to spend another R10 billion on bailing out South African Airways.
Schreiber said in the party’s next correspondence with the IMF, the DA will similarly inform the Fund that Mboweni has now decided to abuse the $4.3 billion loan to pay salary increases for ‘ANC cadres’.
“By admitting that the IMF loan could be used to pay salaries, Mboweni has reneged on the spending commitments he made in his Letter of Intent to obtain financial support under the IMF’s emergency financing instrument,” said the DA MP.
(COMPILED BY INSIDE POLITICS STAFF)
