News today includes a look at Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana’s Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) and how political parties responded to it, Also, a key witness in diamond dealer Louis Liebenberg’s fraud case said he will not testify unless liquidators are investigated, and Sekhukhune United player Shaune Mogaila has turned himself in to police after allegedly fleeing an accident where a girl died. Furthermore, Handré Pollard celebrates his son’s sixth birthday and multi-Grammy Award winner singer-songwriter James Bay will be coming to South Africa in March. News today: 31 October The weather service has warned of extremely high fire danger in the North West and the Northern Cape, while hot and sunny conditions will impact multiple provinces.
– full weather forecast here . MTBPS: No SOE bailouts, early retirement for 30 000 public servants Although Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana disappointed citizens who wanted a basic income grant and more basic foods to be exempted from value-added tax (VAT), he did not include any bailouts for state-owned enterprises in the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) and allocated money for early-retirement packages for public servants to control the public servant wage bill. Godongwana said that about R11 billion is budgeted for early retirement of government employees over the next three years.
Up to 30,000 government employees can qualify for voluntary early retirement over the next two years. Continue reading P.