Enoch Godongwana Slashes SA Growth Target To 1.2% — Sluggish Economy Defies Fiscal Recovery

Standing at the podium in Parliament’s National Assembly chamber on Wednesday, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana delivered numbers that stopped economists mid-breath. South Africa’s projected growth rate has dropped to 1.2% for 2025 — a steep revision from the 1.6% forecast tabled just three months ago in February’s Budget speech. The downgrade landed like a stone in still water, sending ripples through financial markets within minutes of the announcement.

Godongwana confirmed the revised figure during a mid-term briefing, citing persistent structural constraints dragging on economic momentum. The 0.4 percentage-point reduction reflects weaker-than-expected output across key sectors, compounded by deteriorating global trade conditions. While the Treasury maintained that fiscal consolidation efforts remain intact, the minister acknowledged that expansion continues to disappoint millions of South Africans desperate for opportunity.

The National Treasury released a supporting statement attributing the shortfall partly to trade uncertainty triggered by shifting international tariff arrangements. “Growth remains subdued despite meaningful progress on revenue collection and expenditure management,” the document read. Opposition parties immediately challenged the minister, with the Democratic Alliance’s shadow finance spokesperson demanding a detailed breakdown of which sectors dragged performance below earlier projections.

South Africa has battled below-potential growth for over a decade, trapped in a cycle of energy disruptions, logistics failures, and sluggish private-sector investment. The 1.2% target now sits embarrassingly below the population growth rate, meaning per-capita income will effectively shrink further in real terms. Economists at Stanlib and Nedbank had already pencilled in downgrades ahead of Wednesday’s announcement, though several noted the Treasury’s revised figure came in softer than their own cautious estimates.

A retired schoolteacher from Tembisa, seated in the public gallery with a laminated placard quietly resting against her knee, said nothing when the figure flashed on the chamber’s overhead screen. She simply closed her notebook, tucked it into her bag, and stared forward — the kind of exhausted resignation that no graph can fully capture, but every working-class family in this country would recognise immediately.

The Treasury insists the medium-term trajectory remains positive, but no firm timeline for reaching the 3% threshold — widely regarded as the minimum needed for meaningful employment creation — was presented. With elections already reshaping coalition politics and household debt climbing steadily, the question haunting ordinary South Africans is painfully simple: how much longer must we wait before growth finally reaches us.