By Ntokozo Nkambule
The Minister of Finance Neal Rijkenberg says that this year’s national budget is likely to be higher due to the increased Southern African Customs Union (SACU) receipts revenue for the 2022/23 financial year.
Rijkenberg revealed in a briefing yesterday that this year’s SACU receipts have increased from E5.8 billion to E11.75 billion. Worth noting as well is that the amount that Eswatini will receive is the largest share of SACU receipts that the country has ever received from the regional bloc.
In the media briefing, the Minister said the increase in the national budget also comes from the expenditure cuts the government implemented. “We will be able to have a slightly higher budget this year because of the increased SACU receipts revenue. You will also appreciate that we have been doing expenditure cuts to try and maintain our fiscus and ensure it’s sustainable. So we believe with the increased SACU receipts and expenditure cuts that we implemented, we should be able to have a budget that caters to our needs as a country.”
Furthermore, Rijkenberg also disclosed that the increase in SACU receipts revenue will lead to government suppliers and contractors being paid on time, even though there is still a backlog of arrears.
He concluded by encouraging emaSwati to import more in the SACU region as this helps increase the portion the country gets from the SACU revenues.
“The SACU pool measures how much we have imported to our economies from fellow SACU members. The different countries then get a certain percentage of what they have imported into the region. This means that the more Eswatini can import in the SACU region, the better, as we then get increased revenue as well. As a result of this revenue sharing structure, we implore emaSwati to import more from South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho, and Botswana.”
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