South Africa's budget lacks detail on how and when the government will implement policies to boost economic growth, ratings agency Moody's said, so public debt will likely continue to increase for years.
"As a result, we expect the economy will remain subdued and for fiscal consolidation to be slow, sustaining the rise in government debt in the next couple of years," Moody's said in a research report dated October 29.
Finance Minister Tito Mboweni pledged on Wednesday to freeze the wages of the country's 1.3-million civil servants as part of government's plan to narrow a yawning budget deficit and bring down debt.