AFTER THE BELL: Escaping the debt trap could set SA on the road to fiscal victory

Paying down debt could eventually free South Africa’s finances and improve its credit rating, but austerity, fuel price relief and ANC resistance threaten progress.

About three times in my life someone has trusted me enough to tell their debt story. In two cases, it was a person much younger than me, and the emotion on their faces sits with me still.

Both had committed the folly of buying a car, had not checked the insurance was 100%, crashed it and still had to pay it off.

The shame and the embarrassment and the sense of failure on their faces haunt me.

And the twice-a-day reminder, as they sat in a minibus to and from work, and watching the debit order for the car still going off, was almost more than they could bear.

The only happiness in both stories is the memory of the relief that lit up their faces when they were able to finally remove that burden from their shoulders.

The entire reason bond yields in places like the US and the UK and France and Japan are spiking now is because of their high levels of debt and the cost of capital.

Amazingly, despite the fact that you and I have been fated to live in interesting times, there is a very good story playing out that we don’t really pay attention to.

Like so many positive processes, like the extension of our average life expectancy from about 31 in 1900 to about 74 now, there has been a huge change that you have to look to notice.

Despite our slow economy and high youth unemployment, and all of the problems of State Capture and the parties that want to “radically” change everything, we have been reducing our debt.

I don’t know exactly how they’ve done it, but frankly, if we keep going in this direction, someone, somewhere should be given some kind of Nobel debt-paying prize.

On Wednesday, we will get a sense of how much progress the government has really made on this, when Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana delivers his Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (and if you think it’s a lot to read that phrase, you should try saying it … it’s more than a mouthful).

No matter what figures he comes with, he will have a really good story to tell. Economically speaking we live in a tough neighbourhood. Everyone has been hit so hard by oil prices that to pay back debt is really impressive.

I know that when this happens there is likely to be quite a political firestorm about it, strange as it may seem.