14 Nov.
The DA says its diagnostic assessment has identified 12 impediments to growth which, if addressed, will enable SA to emulate Brazil’s dazzling performance in creating jobs and reducing poverty.
The African National Congress (ANC)-led government lacked the political will to drive an ambitious growth agenda, the Democratic Alliance said yesterday when releasing the first phase of a policy formulation project which it believed would get SA to an 8% growth rate.
The party has undertaken its own analysis of the bottlenecks to growth ahead of the release today by National Planning Minister Trevor Manuel of the government’s national plan to 2030.
The DA’s diagnostic assessment identified 12 impediments to growth which, if addressed, would enable SA to emulate Brazil’s dazzling performance in creating jobs and reducing poverty, it said.
In the months ahead, the party will formulate policies to address these impediments, which will form the platform for its 2014 election campaign.
The DA believes the ANC government is hamstrung by its tripartite alliance partners from making the choices necessary to pull millions of people out of poverty and unemployment.
DA caucus chairman Wilmot James said at a media briefing yesterday the ANC’s state-centred approach to the economy stifled innovation, enterprise and job creation. The ruling party also lacked a coherent vision for the economy and the political will to spearhead more rapid growth.
“It is over-reliant on a corrupt and incapacitated state apparatus that often crowds out the more efficient private sector. It is mired in the politics of patronage for the politically connected. And it is paralysed by the payoffs it needs to make to its alliance partners,” Mr James said.
“We do not have to go the route of the failed state. There is still time to choose a different future if we follow the pragmatic, high-growth trajectory pursued by successful developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America,” he said.
The 12 impediments identified by the DA were the low demand for labour; shortage of skills; crumbling infrastructure and a backlog estimated at R220bn; barriers to entrepreneurship ; the economic exclusion of the poor and their lack of access to capital; insufficient competition; lack of innovation in social security; insufficient engagement with Africa; limited black ownership of the economy; an ineffective industrial policy; fiscal unsustainability; and the high cost of crime.
Dealing with the low demand for labour, Mr James said that this was due to “skyrocketing wage demands , antagonistic labour- employer relations, low productivity, and restrictive hiring and firing practices (which) have led to firms shifting to high-skill, capital- intensive production methods”.
DA trade and industry spokesman Tim Harris argued that the government’s industrial policy was ineffective as it required “extensive intervention by government departments that do not have sufficient capacity, and (it) tends to ‘direct’ rather than incentivise innovation and self-discovery by the private sector”.
Inadequate interdepartmental co-operation meant many of the interventions proposed in the industrial policy action plan were not made while current government spending did not prioritise growth and contributed to low levels of capital formation.
Source: Business Day
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