If you are on a quest to establish what is certain in life, you might be led to believe American statesman Benjamin Franklin, who, in a letter dated November 13, 1789, stated that “nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes”.

Contrary to popular belief, Franklin was never President of the US and neither was his well-known statement original. Christopher Bullock was the originator, having written in his 1716 play, The Cobbler of Preston: “‘Tis impossible to be sure of any thing but death and taxes.”

There is a recent addition to this in an unattributed quote: “The only thing more certain than death and taxes is the interest on your debt.”

Full disclosure: this instalment of this column is the fifth in a series – technically known as a pentalogy. When rummaging through this column’s archives, the previous instalments’ links might not be apparent. The earlier parts of the pentalogy are ‘I owe, I owe’, published on February 11, 2022, ‘I owe, I owe – the sequel’ (July 8, 2022), ‘I owe, I owe: Jet’ (December 8, 2023), and ‘The lender’s servant’ (July 11, 2025). As with all sequels, the story does not improve with each iteration – and heaven forbid that there will be a reboot of the series.

All this brings us to Tuesday, July 21, when South Africa’s National Treasury released a 332-word media statement titled ‘South Africa and World Bank sign $1.5-billion development policy loan agreement to support infrastructure modernisation and job creation’.

Why is the loan denominated in US dollars, and not in South African rands? Is this a case of beggars can’t be choosers – a proverb first recorded in 1546 by John Heywood?

The rand equivalent of the loan amount is R24 697 950 000. If you were keeping score of the number of loans that the South African government has incurred, this is the tenth since January 21, 2022.

This might lead you to argue that although I have written a pentalogy of columns, the South African government has incurred a decalogy of loans over the same time, which, according to the National Treasury website, are: January 21, 2022, World Bank loan to South Africa ($750-million); November 10, 2022, bilateral loan agreements, AFD and KfW (€300-million); November 21, 2023, bilateral loan agreements with the World Bank, KfW and the African Development Bank, or AfDB (World Bank, $1-billion; KfW, €500-million; and AfDB, $300-million); November 14, 2024, Agence Française De Développement concludes negotiations for the R7.6-billion (€400-million) public policy loan for South Africa’s just energy transition (€400-million); June 23, 2025, South Africa and the World Bank sign $1.5-billion development policy loan agreement ($1.5-billion); July 23, 2025, South Africa and the African Development Bank sign $474.6-million development policy loan to finance the infrastructure governance and green growth programme ($474.6-million); July 28, 2025, €500-million public policy loan to support the just energy transition via KfW Development Bank (€500-million); April 2, 2026, South Africa signs World Bank loan to support metro trading services reform ($925-million); and May 13, 2026, South African government secures $150-million development policy loan ($150-million).

The loans amount to $6 999 600 000 and €1 300 000 000, or an aggregate of R139 651 513 880 incurred over 1 642 days.

What should be of greater concern is when the actual repayment of the respective loans commences. What do I mean? The loans are similar in nature in that the borrower – South Africa – normally has 12 to 16 years to repay the loan in full.

The repayment of the principal is deferred for the first three years, during which time the borrower pays interest only. Add to this the extent of the loans incurred over such a short period, and you have multiple loan repayments and interest payments. The pain is still to come, or, in the words of Thomas Tusser in his 1557 work, A Hundreth Good Pointes of Husbandrie: “Who goes a borrowing, goes a sorrowing.”

If you want to know the extent of South Africa’s increasing debt, then visit World Debt Clock, which displays South Africa’s debt data in real time at https://debtclock.io/south-africa.

Spoiler alert: At the time of writing, for a brief moment, it stood at R6286 408 765 680.