NEWS ANALYSIS | The verdict on the NDP has been delivered

The jury is no longer out on the National Development Plan (NDP). The verdict has been delivered: the plan will not attain the vast majority of its state goals.

Adopted in 2012 after being forged in 2011 by the National Planning Commission (NPC), which included some of South Africa’s most celebrated public figures, including former finance minister Trevor Manuel and the sitting head of state Cyril Ramaphosa, the plan set a lofty target of creating 11-million jobs by 2030.

It made a song and dance about its core objectives: to eliminate poverty and reduce inequality by the year 2030 through inclusive economic growth, capability building and state reforms. None of these are on course to be achieved, bar a miracle of biblical proportions.

The NPC did not foresee the economic headwinds that lay ahead. Many of these were self-inflicted as the political class took their eyes off the ball and the key drivers of growth: energy, logistics and infrastructure. Not to forget the rampant corruption that engulfed the state — criminality which culminated in what became known as state capture.

Two state entities were particularly identified for mass looting: Eskom and Transnet, whose large capital expenditure budgets were too good to resist. Investments in maintenance and infrastructure were neglected at the altar of graft.

The corruption was so daring that even the South African Revenue Service attracted the glee of the crafty — severely hampering its tax administration capabilities.

The plan set a target of increasing employment from 13-million in 2010 to 24-million in 2030 and raising per capita income from R50,000 in 2010 to R120,000 by 2030. Sounds like a cruel joke, but it is not

The delayed Kusile and Medupi power stations, coupled with the acute underperformance of the rail network and ports infrastructure, conspired to undermine economic growth. When the plan was adopted in 2012, the economy in that year grew 2.5%

The plan set a target of increasing employment from 13-million in 2010 to 24-million in 2030 and raising per capita income from R50,000 in 2010 to R120,000 by 2030. Sounds like a cruel joke, but it is not.

The reality is that economic growth slowed, having not grown by more than 2% over the past 12 years. More people have joined the unemployment lines, and more people are having to depend on social grants to put bread on the table than on gainful employment.

Stats SA data shows that the number of employed was 16.7-million in the first quarter of 2026 — which suggests that the economy has to produce 7.3-million jobs in the next three years to achieve the NDP’s targets.

Raymond Parsons from the North-West University Business School told Business Times that the overall NDP goals have not survived their contact with reality over the years.

“This has become clear from the National Planning Council’s regular progress reports on the performance of the NDP. Credit is given for visible gains in a few socioeconomic areas, as it’s not all bad news in chalking up some achievements for South Africa’s young democracy,” Parsons said.

“But it is very difficult to disagree with the NPC’s finding that, generally, South Africa’s economic performance has been below par for many years, with all NDP targets having been missed.

“South Africa’s GDP growth has only averaged about 1.5% over the past 20 years and about 1% over the past decade. These economic growth rates have not kept up with population growth, and South Africa also does not compare well with other economies in its emerging market peer group.”

A large part of what went wrong with the NDP over the years was that the political leadership did not pay sufficient attention to embedding the NDP in the national psyche. The NDP was not championed in ways and at levels that encouraged the nation as a whole to take ownership of it

—  Raymond Parsons, North-West University Business School

While South Africa, as a small open economy, has inevitably also been buffeted from time to time by global shocks, such as Covid, the country was already failing to implement key NDP reform recommendations even before that.

One key negative factor that presaged the likelihood of not reaching the original NDP socioeconomic targets has been that private and public fixed investment (major job-rich growth drivers) as a percentage of GDP has remained at about 14%. The initial NDP target was a 30% investment of GDP by 2030.

The 14%-15% investment ratio is adequate to support the current expected GDP growth rates of 1%-2%, but will need to rise closer to 20% if the GNU’s growth target of 3.5% by 2030 is to be reached.

If South Africa wants to break out of the present narrow 1%-2% growth corridor, it must accelerate the pace and implementation of the growth-friendly reforms to which it is already committed. This is a strong lesson from the NDP experience.

“In retrospect, a large part of what went wrong with the NDP over the years was that the political leadership did not pay sufficient attention to embedding the NDP in the national psyche,” Parsons said. “The NDP was not championed in ways and at levels that encouraged the nation as a whole to take ownership of it.

“It therefore remained to a large extent a remote debate that failed to develop enough interaction, involvement and traction.

“Although the NDP itself also called for an ‘active citizenry’ to help expedite effective socioeconomic outcomes, it is only now that there is an increasing awareness of the need to also find new, bottom-up solutions to grassroots socioeconomic challenges.”

Business Times