Robert Botha

1 month ago | businesslive.co.za | Robert Botha |Claire Bisseker

“They have fiddled the figures!” exclaimed former UK prime minister Rishi Sunak in response to Rachel Reeves’s maiden budget as chancellor of the exchequer last year. His accusation related to how public debt is defined and measured. Indeed, how debt is measured plays a role in how fiscal policy is managed. The “fiddle” that so outraged Sunak increased the UK government’s scope to borrow without changing the debt target or limit set out in the UK’s fiscal rules...