By Jean Michel Bouvier
The president said the other day at Nedlac that the social partners, the government, business, unions and civil society have agreed on an economic recovery plan.
How uplifting! How many plans did we have over the years? Unfortunately, even after the plans are approved, they remain plans because of an incompetent Cabinet with unqualified cadres. There are no quick fixes.
Ramaphosa sells pipe dreams, promises, platitudes and hopes that his “infrastructure programme” will spur the revival of the economy.
He is unable to keep the lights on after all these years. Eskom was his main responsibility under Jacob Zuma, and that is when the real “train crash” occurred.
It’s one thing talking about building highways, harbours and dams and another finding the expertise, capacity and funding in a corrupt and recessionary environment that can easy turn into a depression.
Unfortunately, the Reserve Bank ignored all the indicators that point downwards and to a slow and painful recovery that will take years. It expects the GDP to contract by -8.2%. I take an educated guess that by year-end it will be more than 10%. Instead of cutting the interest rates once more in order to help the economy, it left them unchanged while the rest of the world have theirs down to zero.
How about Eskom wanting another 25% tariff increase and cannot provide enough electricity even to a 30% working economy? And it is looking for a revival when the economy will be operating at 100%? Please, Mr President, we will probably have a five-day week without electricity by then, as it cannot cope even now.
| Bryanston