Economists have warned that business confidence will remain low unless the government reverses its decision to cut spending in critical sectors.

The warning comes as the country awaits Statistics South Africa’s release of the second-quarter GDP results.

The figures will provide insight into the performance of various sectors of the economy between April and June this year.

Economist Dr Mzwanele Ntshwanti says government needs to invest more in education, infrastructure and healthcare to attract foreign investment.

Ntshwanti says, “Our government is lacking and has been embarking on what is called austerity, which means that they’ve been cutting expenditure on education, health, as well as infrastructure. That then says to business, okay, this government is not interested in building bridges and making sure that water gets into households. And that then pulls back to say, if we then are going to invest in railways, we are not sure if, in fact, this government is interested in terms of energy, the coal, and other resources moving from point A to point B. So that is a big thing that we need to talk about: that our government needs to reverse the cause of austerity and cut down on expenditure.”

Stats SA to release second-quarter GDP figures; Dr Azar Jammine says growth prospects are slim

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