DA requests a snap debate on the recession and mass unemployment in SA

7 June 2017

The Minister of Finance, Malusi Gigaba's, response to the shock news that the economy had entered into a recession was pathetic and suggests government has no concrete plan to pull the economy out of recession and deal with mass unemployment in South Africa.

We are now in deep economic trouble with the economy slipping into recession after GDP in the first quarter of 2017 contracted by -0.7%, following a contraction of -0.3% in the fourth quarter of 2016, and a staggering 9.3 million people now do not have jobs, or have given up looking for jobs, in South Africa.

What is so disturbing is the fact that the recession is, to a large extent self-inflicted by, to quote Deputy-President Cyril Ramaphosa, “a government that is at war with itself”, which has railroaded any chance of implementing the structural reforms necessary to boost economic growth and create jobs in South Africa.

We would have expected the minister to roll out a concrete plan to pull the economy out of recession. However, all the minister could do was whimper that he would be “seeking a meeting with business leaders as soon as possible to discuss ways of working together to achieve inclusive economic growth”, which is rather like fiddling with the deck chairs on the Titanic.

What we need is concrete action, not more meetings, and that is why I have today submitted a request, to the Speaker of the National Assembly, Baleka Mbete, in terms of National Assembly Rule No. 130, for a debate of urgent national public importance on government’s response to the recession and mass unemployment in South Africa.

We cannot, and we will not, sit back when a staggering 9.3 million people do not have jobs, or have given up looking for jobs, in South Africa.

Issued by David Maynier, DA Shadow Minister of Finance, 7 June 2017