THEBE MABANGA
THE International Monetary Fund (IMF) has urged countries to maintain COVID-19 spending support in order to prevent widespread business failures and high unemployment.
For countries like South Africa, this means continuing support such as the R350 Covid relief grant, which is currently in place until the end of January and follows the withdrawal of an additional R500 to child support grant recipients.
“The pandemic-induced economic crisis is set to leave deep scars,” IMF researchers Oya Celasun, Lone Christiansen and Margaux McDonalds warn in a new paper.
“Human capital erosion from prolonged high unemployment and school closures, value destruction from bankruptcies, and constraints on future fiscal policy from elevated public debt,” are sone of the most prominent features of the fallout from the pandemic.
“Groups that were already poor and vulnerable are set to see the largest setbacks,” the trio states.
The G20 countries, of which South Africa is
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