A Year of Covid 19

In the last 12 months we’ve seen the public sector wage bill balloon to 47% of government revenue, and in the recent budget the Finance Minister took the bold but necessary decision to stick to his guns on public sector wages. This week the public sector unions showed him and the country the middle finger with a proposal of CPI plus 4%, ahead of next week’s GDP, which is expected to show a decline of 7%, the largest drop in output since the Second World War. And in all of this the vaccination strategy is paramount. Under the current rollout strategy, in which 6,000 people a day are currently receiving their vaccines, it would take 20 years to vaccinate the whole country. Michael Avery spoke to Warwick Lucas Chief Investment Officer at Galileo Asset Managers, and Raymond Parsons, professor in the School of Business and Governance at North West University, about the impact the pandemic has had on markets and the fiscus over the last 12 months.