100 days of GNU: Commitment to growth must mean removing barriers to growth – IRR

Rhetoric and sentiment will not be enough to stimulate the sustainable growth on which South Africa’s hopes of creating jobs and rolling back years of socio-economic stagnation and decline depend.

So says the Institute of Race Relations (IRR) in a statement marking the first hundred days in office of the multi-party coalition government of national unity (GNU) following the hung parliament elected on 29 May this year.

In many significant ways, the GNU’s formation was a positive development for South Africa. It brought an end to decades of single-party dominance, reinvigorating democratic competition.

The GNU has also illustrated the stability of South Africa’s constitutional foundations in supporting a credible and peaceful change of government. Critically, the GNU has unlocked positive sentiment on the potential of South Africa as an economic and investment destination.

This has been by and large the result of the pro-growth rhetoric that defined almost all major political parties’ campaigns for the elections in May, and the fact that economic growth has risen to the top of the priority list of government. That “rapid, inclusive and sustainable economic growth” is listed as the first priority of the government in the GNU’s founding agreement is a welcome acknowledgement of the primacy of the issue according to successive years of IRR opinion polling and the sustained advocacy by the IRR of elevating social mobility through economic growth to the top of the list of urgent issues facing the country.

Yet, as the GNU has now settled into its role as the stable, growth-focused government of South Africa, it is necessary to warn all those involved that rhetoric and sentiment will not be enough to unlock the sustainable growth needed to unleash the potential of South Africans, create millions of new jobs, and roll back years of socio-economic stagnation and decline.

Says Hermann Pretorius, IRR head of strategic communications: “Economic growth, the key to unlocking what SA can be, is too often seen as the result of pseudo-mystical forces and elements that align in the control of a powerful government. Far too many people over the years have considered economic growth to be little more than figuring out which state thumb should go on which interest-group scale.

“Growth is far simpler and radical than this government-first approach. Economic growth is about committing to removing the barriers that limit the ability of South Africans to solve problems and earn an honest income. That is after all what an economy is: the constructive striving for better solutions in the form of products and services to challenges faced in our communities.”

Pretorius adds: “Removing these barriers requires concrete steps being deliberately taken. This is the motivation for the IRR’s series of “Blueprint for Growth” papers – six have been published since February − that offer a clear diagnosis of what’s gone wrong, and provide to-the-point solutions.

“We urge the government to make good on its commitment to growth and implement the IRR’s proposals. A country of freedom and prosperity, with the right pro-growth policies, is #WhatSACanBe.”

The IRR’s Blueprint for Growth papers can be accessed here.

Media contact: Hermann Pretorius IRR Head of Strategic Communications Tel: 079 875 4290 Email: hermann@irr.org.za

Media enquiries: Michael Morris Tel: 066 302 1968 Email: michael@irr.org.za