‘Carbon tax will elevate alreadyhigh logistics costs’

Judging by its lack of infrastructure spend, the South African government does not believe in the future of the country, says economist Mike Schussler. “We are currently only spending about 40% of what we used to spend several years ago on infrastructure,” he told FTW. “Infrastructure spending is very important for belief in the future. The government is not building infrastructure or spending nearly enough money on infrastructure.” According to Schussler, South Africa has the third highest number of state employees who are paid the seventh most money in the world. “It goes without saying then that we should be demanding an efficient government where the people who are already being overpaid need to deliver more for us and rather find more ways for us to not pay more taxes.” He said with South Africa’s logistics costs already making the county globally uncompetitive, there were question marks around the introduction of carbon tax. “Why are we even considering implementing a carbon tax that will increase our logistics costs even more? Government needs to find ways of decreasing the cost of business rather than thinking up more taxes.”