President Cyril Ramaphosa said that infrastructure, electricity and industrial growth were also the main pillars of the new economic recovery plan, with R100 billion allocated by government to stimulate employment.
President Cyril Ramaphosa addresses a joint sitting of Parliament on 15 October 2020. Picture: @PresidencyZA/Twitter
JOHANNESBURG – With government’s economic recovery now tabled, political parties are hoping to scrutinise the strategy in a debate next week.
Although the four-point economic plan has been met with varied reactions, some organisations said that it simply did not go far enough.
• READ: President Ramaphosa’s economic recovery plan for SA
The president told Parliament that at least 800,000 jobs would be created in the months ahead.
He said that infrastructure, electricity and industrial growth were also the main pillars of the new plan, with R100 billion allocated by government to stimulate employment.
However, in his reaction, ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba said that the president seemed incapable of taking the tough reforms the economy needed for fear of alienating factions within the governing party.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) said that the president’s speech was not the brave commitment that it had hoped for.
The party’s shadow Finance Minister Geordin Hill-Lewis: “We have heard a lot of these promises many times before since President Ramaphosa was elected three years ago and yet there has been extremely slow progress, if any progress, on most of these issues.”
There were also calls for more clarity on the strategy to boost growth.
Pan African Investments and Research’s Iraj Abedian said that President Ramaphosa fell short on a few issues.
“Policy paralysis has been the hallmark of government for the past six or seven years but especially over the last two years and the president did not address that issue of how the policy paralysis is going to be broken.”
But there were some positive notes to take away from what was said.
“The open acknowledgment and commitment that he will not interfere in the legal fight against corruption is an important commitment from the head of state.”
WATCH: 5 key points from the economic recovery plan
