Johannesburg - The official opposition, the Democratic Alliance, has outlined five steps to remedy South Africa’s economic crisis and stop job losses.
DA leader Mmusi Maimane said the crisis, which was underscored by economic growth forecast at 2 percent and unemployment of 34.9 percent when the wider definition is used, would not be helped by “policy incoherence” by the ANC.
The party believes its policies would instead lead to 8 percent growth.
Its first proposal is to stop the energy crisis by breaking power utility Eskom’s monopoly and opening the market to independent power producers with an emphasis on those in the renewable energy sector.
“To alleviate the strain in the short term, we would commit an initial R500 million from the Department of Trade and Industry for the purchase of industrial-sized generators for manufacturing enterprises,” Maimane said.
The party said it would also immediately cancel the R1 trillion nuclear build procurement processes.
He said tourism and mining had suffered under “job-killing” policies and blamed the new visa regulations for declining tourist numbers, saying these would be suspended immediately.
The Department of Home Affairs instituted new regulations that require people travelling to SA with children to present unabridged birth certificates. The tourism sector has argued this requirement has led to a decline in tourists.
On mining, the DA would limit the powers of the state and the minister of Mineral Resources to set prices and change regulations in the sector.
“Further to this, the DA would safeguard against the indiscriminate raising of the 26 percent B-BBEE [broad-based black economic empowerment] ownership level currently required by the mining charter in order to provide investors with greater long-term security,” Maimane said.
The party has also called for relaxing labour laws and reducing red tape for small, medium and micro-sized businesses.
Labour Bureau