CAPE TOWN:South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Thursday that his country needed fundamental change to revive economic growth and tackle endemic poverty, inequality and unemployment that have been deepened by chronic power cuts and COVID-19.
Addressing the many troubles that have plagued Africa’s most industrialised nation in the past decade in his State of the Nation speech, Ramaphosa singled out its unreliable power supply as one of the most egregious threats to long-term prosperity.
The president said there was a need to address the immediate crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, but also to create conditions for sustained development, which he planned to do with a wide-ranging programme of rolling out infrastructure, increasing local production and creating jobs.
“The present situation that we are in now of deep poverty, unemployment and inequality is unacceptable,” he said, promising to prioritise improving Africa’s power generating capacity. “Fundamental reforms are needed to revive economic growth in our country.”
To boost growth, the president said South Africa will commence the public auction of high frequency digital spectrum within one month, aimed at expanding access to fast Internet services that remain costly to the majority of the population.
He also promised to tackle the corruption that blossomed under his predecessor, Jacob Zuma, undermining South Africa’s growth and leaving deep holes in the finances of public companies, like the state-owned power utility, Eskom.
Bereft of the jobs needed to lift millions out of poverty, South Africa has struggled to reverse the economic inequities that are the main legacy of white minority rule.
The richest 10% of South Africans own more than 90% of wealth, according to a 2019 government report, a divide which is believed to have been further entrenched by the COVID-19 pandemic, as it hit the poorest hardest of all.
Ramaphosa said he would extend a social grant introduced to when the pandemic started, which will help keep 10 million people from hunger, around 15 percent of the country’s population.
“Mindful of the proven benefits of the grant, we will extend the it for one further year, to the end of March 2023,” he said.
One promising sector the president highlighted was the nascent domestic cannabis industry, which he said had the potential to create 130,000 jobs and increase South Africa’s export revenue.
“We are streamlining the regulatory process so that hemp and cannabis can thrive as it does in other countries,” he said.
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