Risk to SA in the ANC continuing its 10-Year Lockdown – IRR

Press Release 

A continuation of South Africa’s unacknowledged policy lockdown of the past decade – with increased state control and yet more radical policy-making – will only deepen the post-pandemic economic crisis and scupper the country’s hopes of growth and rising prosperity.
 
So warned Dr Anthea Jeffery, Head of Policy Research for the Institute of Race Relations (IRR), in an online media briefing today on her latest report, The 10-Year Lockdown.
 
The report argues that the easing of South Africa’s stringent Covid-19 lockdown this week occurs against the background of an unacknowledged policy lockdown for at least the last ten years, characterised by ‘radical economic transformation’ policies aimed at changing the ownership, control, and very structure of the economy.
 
The report warns that the ruling African National Congress “will use the economic devastation triggered by the lengthy lockdown to push for the rapid adoption of these measures as part of ‘reconstruction’ and the ‘radical economic transformation’ underpinning this process”.
 
Jeffery says: “Given the massive inefficiency and often rampant corruption in the public service and SOEs, the notion that increased state control will speed up economic recovery and ensure its success should be laughed out of court.”
 
The risk was that “ANC/SACP demands for ever more public ownership and comprehensive state control … may become the only accepted narrative”.
 
It was vital that South Africans spoke up in defence of capitalism, which had “helped lift billions out of poverty all around the globe”.
 
Media materials

• The 10-Year Lockdown report 
• 10-year Lockdown slide presentation
• Audio files in English and Afrikaans by IRR Deputy Head of Policy Research Hermann Pretorius (attached)
• Link to Dr Jeffery’s online briefing (Youtube link: https://bit.ly/2AFJTnu)

 
Media contact: Hermann Pretorius, IRR Deputy Head of Policy Research – 079 875 4290; hermann@irr.org.za
Media enquiries: Michael Morris Tel: 066 302 1968 Email: michael@irr.org.za
Kelebogile Leepile Tel: 079 051 0073 Email: kelebogile@irr.org.za
 
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