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Despite a shrinking plummeting tax revenue base, Mboweni has also set aside another R6.5 billion for SAA to settle its government guaranteed debt and related interest. This was announced in parliament on Wednesday by Mboweni has he tabled his Medium Term Budget Policy Statement .The MTBPS also showed that another R84.7 million has been allocated to communications industry regulator ICASA to help fastrack the licensing of high-demand spectrum, needed among others to reduce the cost of data and stimulate competitions in the lucrative telecoms industry.
Mboweni told MPs that he managed to find funds to allocate yet another bailout to SAA by reducing budget allocations to largely administrative operations of government departments, especially the compensation of employees. This would seen the salary budgets from frontline service delivery departments such as basic education, higher education, health and many others reduced in the next three years as government plans for a pay freeze.