SA is not able to create jobs due to stringent tourism visa rules and unreliable electricity supply, a report following Cyril Ramaphosa’s job summit showed on Thursday, days after official data revealed that the unemployment rate had climbed to its highest level since 2008.
At the summit in 2018, Ramaphosa pledged to create 100,000 new jobs, a feat that looked impossible in an economy that has hardly grown over the last decade and with power utility Eskom struggling to shoulder a mountain of debt and keep the lights on.
The event came a few days after statistician-general Risenga Maluleke announced that unemployment in the country jumped to an 11-year high of 29% during the second quarter, a remarkable increase from the 27.6% recorded in the first quarter of 2019.
Scant on detail
The president received the report, which was scant on detail on what had been achieved so far at the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac), from labour & employment minister Thulas Nxesi, Cosatu general secretary Bheki Ntshalintshali, and by Business Unity SA acting CEO Cas Coovadia.
The report was on the implementation of the framework agreement adopted by the summit in October 2018, and pertained to programmes the government would embark on to create much-needed jobs and prevent further job losses.
It was also tasked to look at ways to reignite the embattled economy and attract investment into SA.
The number of unemployed people in the second quarter increased by 455,000 to 6.7-million. But the number climbs to roughly 10-million if those that have given up looking for work are included, Statistics SA data showed.
Nxesi said they needed to accept that the "momentum" of the implementation of the commitments agreed upon during the jobs summit was in "one way or the other affected by the political period of the elections" in May 8, and the restructuring of the cabinet that followed thereafter with the appointment of new ministers.
"We have agreed now that after this, there is going to be focus on all these projects of the jobs summit," he told a media conference "We have agreed also on the issue of clear time frames and milestones in all the projects that were identified."
Nxesi identified the electricity crisis in the country, together with the issues around water licensing and the controversial visa requirements for tourists as among "critical issues" that stakeholders needed to address to get the economy going ahead.
"The issue of visas for tourists," he said, "came back again and it has not been resolved [as yet]."
Nxesi said they would need to be "very tough" in dealing with these issues.
Coovadia called the current visa regime "inhibitive", saying the stakeholders need to take advantage of low hanging fruits to boost confidence and certainty.
"Between October last year and now the social climate and economic climate as well as the political climate has been difficult. We recognise that we are trying to address job creation and deal with the commitments made at the jobs summit," Coovadia said.
"We all recognise that the country is in a difficult situation, particularly regarding the data that came out from Eskom, the unemployment data as well as Fitch reducing our outlook from positive to negative."
Ntshalintshali said: "We had fruitful discussions. Labour came here with some doubts … whether we are still committed to the commitments made at the jobs summit.
"The commitments made must be honoured."
He said the stakeholders discussed the energy security and that Eskom "is an issue that all of us must be grappled with". Eskom was battling a debt of over R440bn, and recently received a number of bailouts amounting to billions of rand, to stay afloat.
"We are asking ourselves whether we are not going to … the IMF and the conclusion that we have made is that we are not there yet.
"All the problems that have been identified are not insurmountable. They are within reach," he said.
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