President Cyril Ramaphosa has said the government will put job creation and protection at the centre of SouthAfrica’s post-COVID-19 economic recovery programme.
Writing in his weekly newsletter to the nation on Monday, Ramaphosa said there are “significant areas of agreement” in several economic recovery proposals put forward by the African National Congress (ANC), business, civil society and independent analysts.
“In the coming weeks, we will work with our social partners to finalise an economic recovery programme that brings together the best of all the various proposals. The most important part of that programme must be the protection and the creation of jobs,” he said.
Public employment schemes
According to research by the National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS) Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey (CRAM) released earlier this month, around three million South Africans lost their jobs between February and April because of COVID-19.
Ramaphosa said while the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) temporary employer/employee relief scheme (TERS) and other measures helped to protect some jobs, the government needs to implement “public employment schemes.”
He added, “Creating jobs for people that add value to their communities through maintenance, care work and other services, keeps people engaged in productive activity. It helps them to retain and to develop skills.
“It gives many young people a chance to climb the first rung in the job market ladder. Such jobs complement employment created by businesses as they start to recover and private investment returns.”
Social compact
The President said all the plans put forward emphasise the need for a social compact “so that the reconstruction of our economy can be a shared responsibility and a shared undertaking.”
Some of the proposals include improving energy reliability and access to broadband spectrum, building more competitive ports and enhancing transport efficiency.
The ANC’s plan also proposes using pension funds to take over assets of state power utility Eskom, deploying pro-growth and pro-investment monetary policy instruments and establishing a state-owned bank.
Ramaphosa added, “Since the onset of the pandemic in South Africa, our strategy has been to provide whatever support we can, within our constrained resources, to protect businesses and preserve jobs. Now we must move quickly towards a robust programme of reconstruction and recovery – and we must do so together.
“Building on the vast areas of common ground among the proposals from social partners, we now have to put in place a clear, focused and ambitious set of measures to not only restore our economy, but to set it on a new path of inclusive and sustainable growth.”