Mboweni held a briefing on Friday to elaborate on economic measures put in place by government to address the impact of Covid-19.

Treasury and the South African Reserve Bank have come up with several measures to combat the economic fall-out from the Covid-19 pandemic, which threatens to put the South African economy through the wringer.

Mboweni said R20bn will go towards the health sector.

“Our combined fiscal and monetary policy package is well over R800bn. This is a major fiscal and monetary policy response, extraordinarily.”

According to Mboweni, government will rely on several sources of funding.

“Firstly, budget reallocations and reprioritisation. We are going all out to remove from the budget items which can be postponed – all programmes which can be postponed, are being postponed and we are redirecting money to this initiative."

A revised budget bill is yet to be tabled.

Mboweni added that government is in negotiations with the IMF and the World Bank to help fund the fight against Covid-19.

Jacaranda FM