From Revenue Rage to Fiscal Reckoning

Abstract

A policy analysis of revenue mobilisation, expenditure credibility and macroeconomic constraint. The paper makes a simple argument: public debate is over-concentrated on one instrument when three should be in view.

Summary of the report

The Finance Bill is a revenue tool, not the fiscal system itself. It sits downstream of the Budget Policy Statement, the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework, and sector ceilings set months earlier. A debate that arrives only when the Bill is published is a debate that arrives after the decisions have been taken.

Debt service absorbed about 69 per cent of ordinary revenue in FY 2024/25, several times above the IMF Debt Sustainability Framework thresholds for low-income countries, which range from 14 to 23 per cent. At the margin, new revenue is servicing debt rather than expanding productive capital.

The analysis closes with targeted recommendations for the National Treasury, Parliament, the Controller of Budget, civic actors, development partners and the Central Bank.