Measures to curb the spread of COVID-19 and to support citizens
On the 23rd of March, the president announced measures not only to curb the spread of the disease but also to support its citizens, such as wage subsidies, tax relief for low-income earners, and relax tax payment schedule for SMEs under 50million rands annual turnover.
Several relief packages for small businesses, including tax relief, have been announced since the country went into lockdown to curb the spread of COVID-19. However, there is frustration and uncertainty around the difficulties in finding these programs, accessing their webpages, or how each one works and how to apply, says Spartan SME Finance CEO Kumaran Padayachee.
“As with any crisis, timing is always critical and many of these programmes are understandably still being operationalised,” he adds.”The financial relief announcements have been somewhat of a healing balm to the ears of entrepreneurs”. The swift reactions and proactivity of the government and the private sector in putting these lifelines in place are highly commended, says Padayachee.
According to Duma Gqubule (2020), the full package of intervention by the government won’t be enough for already an exposed economy. When the government takes two-thirds of the GDP offline to support its citizens, there would outcomes such as reduction of the country’s economy twice as much since the global economy went down thus after the epidemic. And therefore, to regain the loose thousands of people in the country might lose their jobs.