Pretoria - President Cyril Ramaphosa’s administration has undertaken to develop plans to ignite the economy and create more jobs during its Cabinet lekgotla which ends on Friday at the Sefako Makgatho Presidential guesthouse in Pretoria.
This is the first lekgotla since Ramaphosa appointed his new Cabinet last month.
Cabinet spokesperson Jackson Mthembu said the lekgotla - which also includes premiers of the nine provincial government and senior civil servants - would on Thursday focus on strategies to reverse the 3.2% contraction of the economy which happened in the first quarter of 2019, the worst drop since the same period in 2009, during the global financial crisis.
Mthembu, who is a Minister in the Presidency, said they set aside today to discuss an industrial strategy to ignite the economy of the country, adding they would also focus on Eskom which was found to have largely contributed to the contraction of the economy.
“We want to develop an infrastructural development model which would greatly improve our economy from 0.8% towards the 5.4% target set by the National Development Plan.
“We must meet the target by 2030,” Mthembu said.
Mthembu also noted that some of the past infrastructure development failures would come under scrutiny.
Mthembu said the lekgotla would be aimed at converting the ANC election manifesto into a government programme to ensure job creation.
He said the first day of the meeting focused on the reconfiguration of the government following Ramaphosa’s decision to trim his ministers from 38 to 26.