SA Revenue Service makes R18 billion ‘mistake’

South African Revenue Services incorrectly added R18 billion ($1.8 billion) to the country’s trade deficit last year. Business Day also reports that the Reserve Bank and SARS have been aware of the discrepancy for months, but failed to take action.

Economists at Trade & Tariff Intelligence and IHS Global Insight conducted research which shows that SARS started including figures relating to gold imports for further processing, but neglected to include the subsequent gold exports. This has been confirmed by the Bureau for Economic Policy and Analysis at the University of Pretoria.

This is of course a fairly serious error, as it could have contributed to the Rand’s depreciation and also negative market perceptions of South Africa in 2008. It is also not the first error of this magnitude. A few years ago Statistics SA miscalculated the inflation rate.

It is impossible to calculate the real damage to the economy by such “errors”. You can also debate the extent to which Affirmative Action appointments contributed to this issue, but that would just be racist, wouldn’t it?

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