Jobs, Eskom, BEE: Ramaphosa’s Friday speech must get ‘back to the basics’

When President Cyril Ramaphosa updates Parliament on Friday on progress regarding the implementation of the country’s Economic Reconstruction and Recovery Plan, economists hope he will talk about implementation and not more planning.

Top of the agenda should be jobs, says economist Mike Schüssler.

“I want to hear the president say that South Africa will do everything in its power to put jobs first. Only health and safety come before job creation and nothing else, with issues such as BEE [Black Economic Empowerment] and localisation in second or third place.”

He said the only investment criteria that government should look at is jobs.

“When local or international entrepreneurs invest in South Africa, they should not have to fill in any administration or BEE forms or have to meet employment equity, minimum wages, Seta [Sector Education and Training Authority] fees or anything else except taxes, of course, to start doing business here.”

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Jobs must be only requirement

Schüssler says the only question should be how many jobs are you creating or saving, with nothing about “invest here” or “build this there” or “fund a school”.

“No pressure, we just need jobs. Government can at least partly fund any training needed.”

Other things he would like to hear when the president updates Parliament are:

• If you feel insecure, we will provide police at your premises and if your product transport takes too long or is too costly, we will investigate and help. We will build roads to get you here for jobs.
• We will help with environment legislation changes or exemptions if you create jobs. We will smooth all things. Local government will deliver infrastructure or central government will take over that role to keep jobs or create jobs.
• Government will help with export promotion and the Competition Commission will not even ask for your telephone number if you create jobs.
• We will reform all network industries such as rail, ports, electricity and water. We will make them compete and bring down the cost of doing business.
• We will get rid of all red tape except for health and safety.
• We will help SMMEs to get loans and places to rent and get services such as water connected as fast as possible and as cheaply as possible.

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Embracing digital in Economic Reconstruction and Recovery Plan

Schüssler says once this is done, it is no longer about re-industrialisation, but about embracing digital.

“We need help to get our digital industries going so that young people with skills can do work all over the world from here. We have to ensure that Uber and courier companies can deliver and do their jobs so that we can employ drivers, packers and planners.”

For him, embracing the new digital economy means:

• Making series and movies for Netflix and Apple
• Getting accountants to do work from here all over the world
• Teaching our people to do social media marketing so they can get the new digital jobs or at least compete for them
• Setting up systems for the world of advertising and social media to do work here
• Doing leg work on desktop research
• Helping writers to get international contracts
• Putting quality first to get these jobs
• Using the time difference but language similarities as a driver for our digital age job creation
• Continuing with call centres and lowering phone and data charges, as well as increasing quality of services
• Embracing renewable energy so that we can become preferred suppliers to the rest of the world. 

Schüssler says he wants to hear that we will embrace the concept of job-over-grant income.

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No more BEE

Professor Jannie Rossouw from the Wits Business School also wants the spotlight to move from BEE to BEST (Black Economic Skills Transfer) when the president updates Parliament.

“If we also do not review employment legislation, job creation will not happen. We also need a review of the department of trade, industry and competition and stop it wanting to regulate everything and support business instead.”

He would also like to hear that departments that add no value, such as the Department of Small Business, will be shut, which would also add to decrease the public wage bill.

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Get back to basics

Hugo Pienaar, chief economist at the Bureau of Economic Research at Stellenbosch University, says the problem in South Africa is not that we do not have any plans.

“We know what to do, but I wish we could just get back to basics, where we ask a company what we can do to make it easier for you.

“This is where we need basic law and order, stable electricity supply, a working rail and ports service. We need strategies to get these things working. I also want to hear what government is doing to decrease the cost of doing business, because if we address this, positive growth will follow.”

However, there is light at the end of the tunnel, Pienaar says.

“Deregulation, such as splitting up Eskom, the 100MW threshold and Transnet’s willingness to work with the private sector are positive developments.”

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More formal feedback

Maarten Ackerman, chief economist and advisory partner at Citadel, agrees that the president should stop telling us what government plans to do and start telling us what it is doing.

“There are enough good plans and we have the best policies, but it is not happening or it is happening too slowly.”

He believes job creation is the root cause of the country’s problems and the economy can only get going when we can get economic growth on track.

Ackerman is also impressed by the progress over the last two months, such as the 100MW threshold, privatisation of state-owned entities, such as South African Airways (SAA), Eskom going green and the reconstruction of the ports authority.

However, he wants to hear that there will be formal feedback and accountability on projects and explanations for slow progress to rebuild business confidence, and evidence that we are moving in the right direction when the president updates the House.

“Good projects are taking shape, but the private sector does not know about them. Government must also point out the stumbling blocks. There is funding for infrastructure projects, but a shortage of skills which should be highlighted.

“We need more feedback about what is working and what not. And then of course, the political will to push projects through.”