… Eswatini to receive E11.75 billion for 2023/2024
BY PHUMELELE MKHONTA
MBABANE– Eswatini will enjoy the highest recorded Southern African Customs Union (SACU) receipts.
Minister of Finance Neal Rijkenberg this morning revealed that the country’s SACU receipts have increased by 102 per cent in 2023/2024 from E5.8 billion to E11.75 billion
According to the minister, this is the highest share Eswatini has ever received from the regional bloc and the factors that have contributed include a higher than projected outturn of the 2021/2022 Common Revenue Pool (CRP) and the surplus emanating from that will be paid together with the 2023/2024 revenue share.
Other factors contributing to the increase in the Eswatini SACU receipts are a 25 percent increase in the projected size of the CRP for 2023/2024 compared to 2022/2023 and an increase in Eswatini’s share total intra-SACU imports from 9.6 percent in the revenue sharing framework for 2023/2024- meaning the measures that the Ministry of Finance have been implementing in order to enhance the intra-SACU imports have started paying off.
The Minister of Finance will be setting up a SACU stabilization fund which still needs to be approved through Cabinet and Parliament.
“We are hoping to table the regulations for the fund together with the budget that will be presented soon. The SACU stabilization fund will be put in place so that when we have better years like the year ahead, we will take the funds from that year and cushion in years when the SACU receipts are low. This will help bring more stability to the volatility that we normally have in SACU receipts that we get as a country.
“We are still planning and hoping that this will be finalized in Cabinet and Parliament. We are also hoping to put the E1.5 billion into the SACU stabilization fund this coming year- this should give us a lot more stability as an economy going forward,” said the minister.
The Minister of Finance further said a lot of work had gone into this from the officials at the Ministry of Finance and Eswatini Revenue Service (ERS).
“I would like to take this opportunity to thank them for all the hard work they have put in to work on the numbers from our side as Eswatini.
“The advantage of this is that it is resetting our normal, so going forward we should continue to receive a higher percentage of the SACU revenue pool,” said Rijkenberg.
