Minister of Finance pays visit to National Treasury Secure Data Facility

On Tuesday, 21 July, the secure data lab at the National Treasury of South Africa received a surprise visit from the Minister of Finance, Mr Enoch Godongwana.

The National Treasury Secure Data Facility (NT-SDF) was opened in early 2019 as part of a collaboration between the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), the South African Revenue Services (SARS) and National Treasury (NT). Its purpose is to provide policymakers and researchers with anonymized administrative tax data for research that will lead to more inclusive economic policies for South Africa and the surrounding region.

Mr Godongwana was given a tour of the lab, shown different types of data, and even got to speak with one of the researchers working on the anonymized tax data.

“The minister was very interested in the type of data we have and the kind of research that can be conducted on it. We showed him an example of what was possible, and he was quite impressed by the level of detail in the data,” said Mlungisi Ndlovu, one of UNU-WIDER’s Research Assistants.

The Minister of Finance expressed that he was excited to return to the lab to explore the data further.