OPINION - So Tito Mboweni’s announcement, that was “a surprise bunny” to most in government, that he has a plan
to grow the economy to 3% and create 1 million jobs is just the ANC’s way of taking the National Development Plan and trying to resurrect it and serve it as a new
dish with an implementation horizon to 2030.
These pronouncements, or
should I say wish list from the finance minister, and we have heard all these before, came less than a week after a board member of Eskom, Nelisiwe Magubane, announced at an Afriforesight event that even a 0.1% acceleration in economic growth will trigger power cuts.
So will the rise of 3% of gross domestic product that the minister promises start a new load shedding scenario as Eskom has no capacity to produce more due to under-performance.
Magubane said further that the generation capacity that was supposed to be at about or over 80% lags and hovers at about 60%.
What I saw was more of the same promises and ticking again all the right boxes that have been ticked repeatedly before, as to pacify the international investors and the rating agencies so they will give us more time.
All the government is doing is to run around and try to plug holes and put out fires that they have themselves created through sheer incompetence and stupidity and they still don’t have the right policies, people and equipment or even water to put out the fires that have engulfed the country.
Jean Michel Bouvier Bryanston
Daily News