Forget the politics and focus on growth
President Zuma will stand down when the ANC’s pain becomes too much. When it is no longer in their interests that he remains because it endangers their own positions, he will go.
Until then the interests of all South Africans require us to begin putting our economy right. The president has repeatedly said the ANC is more important to him than the country. To many South Africans, the country and our people are far more important than any political party.
Minister Pravin Gordhan and the Treasury are making valiant efforts but that is not enough. The World Bank has warned that the “political crisis” together with the severe drought and the drop in commodity prices will drag down economic growth.
We will have to ride out both the lower commodity prices and the drought. There are encouraging signs that an upturn in commodity prices may be imminent. China’s GDPP growth at 6.7%, while the lowest in seven years, is stabilising at a figure that makes the developed economies a little envious.
The drought requires urgent action by the government to alleviate the plight of farmers in the worst hit regions because that will save our agricultural infrastructure, help to some extent with our food self-sufficiency and save thousands of jobs.
Sadly, we spent the contingency money on far above inflation increases to public officials, but the government will simply have to find some cash. The need is desperate in some areas, especially the Western Cape. One hopes the Communist minister of Agriculture will not neglect aid to that province for political reasons.
The political crisis is something else entirely. Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s recently warned that a preoccupation with politics was delaying policy makers from implementing growth-enhancing policies. This must end. While they play politics, the country burns.
If our rulers are determined to make us put up with a deeply flawed president and far too many ministers and deputy ministers of dubious quality, at least they, and he, could get on with the business of running the country – the job for which they were elected. They ought to choose policy options and then implement policies that promote growth and therefore promote jobs.
A constant criticism of the country is that we are brilliant at producing plans, one after the other, but lousy at implementing them. In addition to the National Development Plan (NDP), supposed to be government policy and enjoying wide goodwill and support across party lines, we have Minister Patel’s New Growth Path (NGP) and Minister Rob Davies’s Industrial Policy Action Plan (IPAP).
Some of these plans contradict each other in material respects and prevent the NDP from implementation. The reason is not far to seek. Some ministers and deputies are guilty of “fronting” that leads to policy confusion on the part of the people who make growth happen and also to government failure to carry out what it says it wants to achieve.
The fronting to which I refer is not the misuse of black persons to front for white-owned and controlled businesses intent on getting a foot into the Black Elite Enrichment ( BEE) policies so loved by the careerists and bandwagon climbers in the ANC.
The fronting to which I refer is that of politicians who see nothing wrong with belonging to two political parties at the same time, and parties, at that, which have opposing economic policies. The ANC government is led by the nose by the Guptas and the other state capturers who have a finger in one ANC nostril and South African Communist Party (SACP) ministers, forty per cent of the cabinet, with a finger in the other nostril.
Is it any wonder that there is such policy uncertainty and that more and more investors are looking outside the country for safe, productive investments? After a whole generation of rule by the ANC, we have more unemployed people than at any time in our history, thus increasing inequality. We also have a growth rate that continues to drop towards nil and an investment rating heading for junk status.
The complexity of the NDP compounds the confusion. It is long and involved and has so many areas of focus that most people have not even read it. It would be entertaining to find out how many MPs have read it – let alone cabinet ministers supposed to implement it.
Into this policy muddle has stepped Ann Bernstein of the Centre for Development and Enterprise (CDE) like a knight in shining armour. The CDE has produced a readable, straightforward plan that, if adopted, and more importantly, if implemented, would ensure growth and jobs.
Ann Bernstein wrote in Business Day recently, “Government must place growth and employment at the top of the policy agenda. Growth and employment must become the criteria by which the consequences – intended and unintended – of all other policy initiatives should be assessed.”
Bernstein recommends key reform areas:
- transformation and growth must work together for all;
- a new growth strategy is needed to apply across the entire economy;
- the state must recognise that private sector growth is the only way to attain national development goals;
- South Africa needs jobs for the workforce we have not the one we wish we had;
- growth requires a reset of the state business relationship; the skills pipeline has to be improved and foreign skills imported until then;
- recognising the future is urban, not rural.
She adds, “South Africa needs growth that is urban led, private-sector-driven, enabled by a smart state that understands markets and targeted at mass employment.”
Let’s see if our rulers will leave the politics alone just for a little, listen to some sage advice and focus on putting our economy right.
Douglas Gibson is a former Opposition Chief Whip and a former ambassador to Thailand.
This article first appeared in The Star.
