Johannesburg - The country's economic structure needs to change if five percent growth is to be achieved, Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said on Tuesday.
“From a Cosatu perspective we can never achieve the fundamental change we need in South Africa until we recognise that most of our wounds come from the fact that we inherited a growth path from the apartheid era,” he said after President Jacob Zuma delivered his State of the Nation address in Parliament.
“We need to change that structure, we need to move away from an economy which is dominated by mining, finance, and heavy chemicals.”
Vavi said more focus needed to be put on industrialisation.
He said Zuma did not go “far enough” in his address on industrialisation.
Macro-economic policies needed to be changed.
Vavi welcomed Zuma's focus on the energy sector. However, he was not a fan of nuclear energy but supported renewable energy.
He bemoaned the fact that there had been forced power cuts again because of the strain on the country's power grid.
“We can't go on with these lights on, lights off,” Vavi said.
Sapa