Finance Minister Tito Mboweni stressed on Monday that, before contemplating any possible stimulus package to address the negative economic effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, all efforts should be geared towards ensuring that the already weak domestic economy “does not grind to a halt”. A failure to do so, he added, would further undermine the collection of the tax revenues required to take the actions needed to deal with the health crisis. Speaking during a media briefing hosted to unpack government’s response to the crisis, following President Cyril Ramaphosa’s March 15 declaration of the outbreak as a State of National Disaster, Mboweni said the primary objective should be to keep the economy moving so that South Africa did not descend into a “prolonged recession”.
