Nelspruit -
Employment in South Africa is higher than it has ever been before, President Jacob Zuma said on Friday.
This, even though the economy had regained a million jobs lost as a result of the economic recession in 2008, he said at an African National Congress dinner in Nelspruit, Mpumalanga, ahead of the official launch of the party's election manifesto on Saturday.
“We can count few achievements in the last five years, but they are important,” he said.
Zuma said more than R1 trillion had been spent on infrastructure development and that access to banking was up 15 percent since 2009 at 75 percent.
Five hundred informal settlements had been replaced with decent housing and basic services, and more teachers had been trained, with 7000 more graduates in 2013 than in 2009, when there were 6000.
On health, Zuma said the prevention of transmission from mother to child HIV and Aids programme had resulted in a drop of infections in infants from 24 000 in 2008 to 8200 in 2011.
The average life expectancy increased to 60 years in 2012. - Sapa