The ANC has conceded that very little progress has been made in fighting unemployment, poverty and inequality.
In a frank assessment of the economy to the ANC’s lekgotla late last month, Secretary General Gwede Mantashe also admitted that some catalyst sectors meant to give the economy a shot in the arm “seem to be in a crisis”.
“Except for the impact made by social grants, we are making little progress in our fight against the triple challenges. This is serious as the patience of our people is running out, particularly in the face of agitation for discontent,” he said in a document titled “Radical Economic and Social Transformation – A Reality or Myth”.
The economy is limping along and targets for GDP growth in the National Development Plan are far off track. While President Jacob Zuma said earlier this week that it was not all doom and gloom for the economy, and its poor performance should be understood in the context of a struggling global economy, the country is facing a jobs bloodbath, which labour has warned it will not take lying down.
The ANC lekgotla preceded the cabinet lekgotla, and serves as a guide to the government for implementing strategy.
Mantashe said the ANC had been slow in implementing its major priority of economic growth, job creation and sustainable livelihoods.
The sectors in crises were not helping matters. They included energy in general, parts of transport, and Information, Communication and Technology.
A number of sectors intended to create growth and employment needed to be analysed to help understand why the economy was growing at a “disappointingly” slowly.
He said questions to be asked included if the ANC was not over-investing in the auto sector without seeing the multiplier effect of this investment in economic growth and job creation.
He asked if investment in agriculture was not having a limited focus with regards to small projects, therefore yielding minimal impact.
“Are we not caught up in a false paradigm that assumes that food processing will create all the jobs in this important sector. These questions could equally apply to rural development and land reform,” Mantashe said.
Land reform needed to be linked to food production, and the opening of land claims beyond the original cut-off date had to be given real meaning.
He also said social infrastructure needed to be rolled out with speed.
“Human settlement is at the heart of mass resentment. However, it can be turned around to be the driver of improvement in electoral fortunes for our movement.”
In a document from the party’s economic transformation commission to the lekgotla, a number of recommendations were made on how to grow the economy.
On mining, the commission recommended that the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act should be split into mineral and petroleum legislation to provide dedicated attention to oil and gas.
The bill to create a state-owned mining company should be finalised and the legal regime should enable the government to have more than one such company, it said.
Necessary support should be given to emerging mining companies to promote job creation.
The party also called for an investigation into the trading regime on minerals to ensure that the exporting of minerals was done in an optimal manner that ensured maximum returns to the country and dealt with illicit trading.
On agriculture, the commission said good land use and planning was critical.
If land is not managed properly, South Africa’s ability to feed itself and comparative advantage in the agricultural trade will be compromised, the document states.
On broadband roll-out, the commission urged the government to speed up the process.
It also called for immediate decisive action to address the drought, which to some extent was the result of bad development choices.
The commission made no recommendations on fixing state-owned enterprises, many of which are in dire straits.
However, it did reaffirm that state-owned enterprises were critical economic levers of the developmental state.
The recent scandals plaguing SOEs, particularly in the energy sector, set the scene for what is likely to be robust engagement at the ANC’s national general council next month.
Sunday Tribune