SA’s anaemic economic trajectory over the past decade — which the ANC blames for its huge electoral decline — is set to take centre stage at a three-day strategy meeting.
The ANC’s national executive committee (NEC) lekgotla in Johannesburg, attended by the party’s appointees in national and local government, follows its electoral decline in the national polls earlier this year.
The ANC lost the parliamentary majority it had held since the attainment of majority rule in 1994. This forced the party into a government of national unity (GNU) with several parties including the DA and IFP.
Conceding that the ANC’s electoral decline was a “strategic setback that has far-reaching consequences”, ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa urged delegates on Sunday, the first day of the strategy meeting, to craft innovative ideas on job creation and end unemployment.
“The economy has barely grown between the last 14 years 2010-2024 ... per capita GDP has been declining over the last decade,” Ramaphosa said, adding that SA should be “more investment friendly ... we need to massively increase [the] scale of investment [in the] green economy, hydrogen economy, agriculture and mining, which are all frontiers for growth”.
If estimations by the Bureau for Economic Research (BER) released last week are correct — that GDP could grow by 2.2% in 2025 — SA’s economic performance next year will be the best since the postpandemic growth rate of 4.7% in 2021, which was off a low base after GDP contracted by 6% in 2020.
The economy grew by 1.9% in 2022 and 0.7% in 2023, and GDP is broadly expected to average about 1% in 2024. Apart from 2021, the last time SA saw its GDP expand by more than 2% was in 2013.
Finance minister Enoch Godongwana and Maropene Ramokgopa, minister in the presidency responsible for planning, monitoring & evaluation, were scheduled to make presentations on the likely trade-offs of the seventh administration amid fiscal constraints.
On the campaign trail ahead of the May 29 general elections, Ramaphosa bemoaned that traditional ANC voters had expressed disappointment over the ailing economy, with many opting to stay away from the polls in protest.
He said the meeting would look at how the government would use the social services to “more effectively maintain and improve the provision of housing and transport”.
The ANC experienced the greatest decline in metros, where there has been prolonged instability in governance including Johannesburg, Tshwane and Nelson Mandela Bay.
Ramaphosa said the ANC NEC had instructed the national task team on coalitions to intervene at municipal level to stabilise municipalities across the country, adding that the first engagement would start in Johannesburg.
A concept note presented to the lekgotla says that in the formation of the GNU with nine other parties “the ANC had to seize the tactical initiative to ensure this does not turn into a defeat. It decided on a GNU approach, but this comes with risks and opportunities.
“Among the challenges of the moment include the persistence of the national fault lines of unemployment, inequality and poverty; the democratic deficit expressed through the elections turnout,” the note reads.
With Denene Erasmus
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