Botswana has received over R200 billion more revenues from the South African Custom Union (SACU) than it has contributed since 2010. South Africa has provided more than R600 billion to SACU than it has received since 2010 (almost R100 billion in 2022/23 alone). South Africa’s share of SACU receipts declined from 65% to 44% over this period, while its contribution to the common revenue pool was stable at around 97.5%.
As mentioned in earlier posts (here and here), the SACU revenue split is driven by how much other SACU members import from South Africa, so as South Africa’s SACU exports rise, our revenue share will tend to fall. It is worth noting though that South Africa benefits from higher value added activity and by earning higher prices as import duties displace cheaper imports from overseas. SACU transfers have represented a transfer of almost 5% of our total government revenue and Eswatini and Lesotho’s governments are highly dependent on these transfers.
