No bailouts for SOEs

State-owned enterprises (SOEs) are still not expected to receive any bailouts from government when the postponed 2025 budget is finally delivered on 12 March.

- Roy Cokayne

The delivery of the budget was cancelled at the 11th hour last week because of disagreements, largely over the contentious proposal for a two-percentage-point hike in value-added tax (VAT).

Dr Elna Moolman, Standard Bank Group head of South Africa Macroeconomic Research, believes the "SOE part of the budget is the one part that will remain unchanged".

"The 'announcement' regarding SOEs is to my mind almost principled stances," she said.

Moolman said she saw the "announcements" in the budget regarding Eskom and Transnet to be almost "isolated from the VAT vision".

The Budget Review said the 2025 budget maintained government's stance of not providing bailouts to SOEs.