Pretoria - South Africa's revenue for last year was more than what was expected, said Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan.
Tabling his department's Budget Vote in Parliament on Tuesday Gordhan said: "The books have been closed on last year. Revenue was about R8 billion more than we expected, and expenditure a bit less."
The country's budget deficit was 6.7 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) which was rather better than the 7.3 percent that was anticipated even though it was considerably wider than 1 percent of the GDP recorded in 2008/09.
Gordhan said the minister's committee on the budget and Treasury have begun working on next year's budget.
"Preliminary data suggest that we will see moderate economic growth this year, perhaps somewhat higher than we projected in February," he said.
Following on Statistics South Africa's (Stats SA) data showing that unemployment rose in the first quarter of the year, Gordhan said this showed that more must be done to restructure the economy and to create jobs.
He said South Africa could learn from developed countries that are experiencing financial difficulty.
Though substantial improvements to remuneration and career progression have been made in the public sector, employment in the country needs to strike the right balance between better wages and employing more civil servants, said Gordhan.
"If we are to achieve sustainable improvements in living standards for all, we have to ensure that salary increases are affordable, equitable and aligned with improvements in performance and service delivery," said Gordhan.
