SA’s investment conference and Human Rights Day celebrations are the main highlights of this week.
On Thursday, SA will host its fourth investment conference at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg as the country battles to lure investors and revive economic growth.
In 2018, President Cyril Ramaphosa set a target to lure investments of $100bn by 2023 in an attempt to reignite growth, which has been falling far short of the 5.4% annual target set in the National Development Plan, the government’s blueprint for eliminating poverty and reducing inequality. Instead, foreign direct investment has largely been stagnant, with the unemployment rate jumping to a record of almost 35%.
Ramaphosa delivered the keynote address of this year’s Human Rights Day celebrations at a national event at the Reagile Community Centre in Koster, North West, where he called for an end to campaigns against foreigners, saying these create social tensions and are against the law.
He also criticised employers who employ undocumented migrants and they were also breaking the law. “[To] those who are setting up organisations such as Dudula, we say that is contravening the law. We cannot allow a situation where people embark on vigilantism to deal with a problem, a social problem.
“Let us work together. It is sensitive because this thing can soon turn into xenophobia and you know how the continent can turn its back on us.
“We rely on this continent of 1.3-billion people for our business, imports and livelihoods and therefore, as we deal with the problem, let us be wise, let us not be violent.”
The Operation Dudula campaign began in Soweto last year and spread to other parts of Johannesburg aimed at “rooting out illegal and undocumented foreign nationals, particularly those setting up shops and engaging in criminal activities”. This has led to tensions and sometimes clashes in affected areas.
Deputy President David Mabuza, as chair of the interministerial committee (IMC) on land reform and agriculture, will on Tuesday make an oversight visit to the District Six Development Project in Cape Town. The apartheid regime declared District Six a whites-only area, and forcibly shifted nonwhite people from the area to overcrowded townships, tearing friends and families apart. The postapartheid government has been on a drive to rebuild the once vibrant multicultural community, but progress has largely been slow.
During the oversight visit, Mabuza and members of the IMC will conduct a walkabout aimed at assessing progress on the District Six development project and engage with claimants and beneficiaries.
The visit will be followed by a meeting of the IMC. The nine-member IMC co-ordinates and implements measures to accelerate the redistribution of land and also deal with the provision of agricultural support and the redress of spatial inequality within a broad and comprehensive land redistribution and agricultural development programme, the presidency said.
On Tuesday, both houses of parliament are scheduled to debate Human Rights Day. The National Council of Province’s (NCOP’s) theme for the debate is: “The right to equality — reducing poverty and inequality”. The National Assembly will focus on “entrenching human rights culture in the fight against racism, xenophobia and other related intolerances”.
On Wednesday in parliament economics cluster, ministers will field questions from MPs. The economics cluster includes the ministers of finance; communications and digital technologies; mineral resources and energy; employment and labour; agriculture; and forestry, fisheries and the environment.
The DA will be asking the finance minister about the crippling fuel hikes and the possible restructuring of the fuel pricing methodology.
The ANC and the DA will ask the communications minister about the SA Post Office (Sapo) crisis and its need for a government bailout of more than R8bn over the medium term which the National Treasury has declined to fund.
On Thursday, the NCOP will debate “the relevance and success of BBBEE and Employment Equity legislation”. On the same day, the National Assembly will consider and debate the standing committee on appropriations report on the Division of Revenue Bill, parliament said in a statement.
The bill is aimed at providing for equitable division of revenue raised nationally among the national, provincial and local spheres of government for the 2022/2023 financial year.
With Andisiwe Makinana
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