As the 2017 Budget draws near, there is growing anticipation that Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan, who is possibly facing his toughest Budget yet, will take some bold steps to direct the country’s economy along a  sustainable path.

Speaking at a pre-Budget roundtable on Tuesday, professional audit, tax and advisory services firm KPMG chief economist Lullu Krugel said that, while there are some expectations of maintaining the current stability the National Treasury has worked to achieve, South Africa’s economy needs to undergo some significant shifts and take on board decisions that will be unpopular to implement.

This means Gordhan will need to walk a fine line in ensuring investor confidence, stability and certainty, while taking bold, decisive steps to bolster the struggling economy that desperately needs a helping hand.

“[Simultaneously,] we do not want him to change too much from the direction the National Treasury set out,” she said, pointing to achievements in managing debt down, maintaining a transparent Budget and maintaining the National Treasury’s expectations, which had led to some stability.

Both Gordhan and President Jacob Zuma face growing pressure to present cohesive plans that epitomise a meaningful display of stability by the country’s leadership, which, to date, has impressed the ratings agencies enough to prevent the devastating downgrades that could send South Africa into a tailspin.

“We sit with a conundrum,” she told media at the gathering in Parktown, citing slow employment growth, which led to slow tax growth and slow business growth in an economy which has experienced a difficult few years.

“The growth story, for me, is the most important. We cannot just be open for business,” Krugel noted, adding that there should be bold interventions in State-owned enterprises, including the potential privatisation of those entities.

“I think it is time we seriously discuss these things.”

She added that there was hope that Gordhan planned to stimulate investor confidence and tackle issues raised in the State of the Nation Address that had been on the table for a number of years

There is a need to narrow focus to the “specifics” involved in industrialisation and manufacturing, much in the same way that the now-successful and export production-heavy automotive sector had benefited comprehensively over the past few years through targeted incentives.

“We need to be much more specific in our interventions,” Krugel said, questioning what interventions, if any, were planned for South Africa’s mining sector, which remained a critical component of the economy.

“What are we doing, then, if we believe that this is the industry to [stimulate] growth?”

“If commodities are doing well, South Africa does well,” she said.