DA SETS 6% GROWTH AGENDA

The Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative (ASGI) was commissioned by President Mbeki with identifying and implementing a set of policy initiatives that will improve South Africa's growth prospects. The aim is to reach a 6% growth rate by 2010.

The ASGI team has published a list of six constraints that they believe must be addressed in order to achieve and sustain higher rates of growth. These are infrastructure bottlenecks, the regulatory environment, service delivery and governance, skills and skills development, pricing power and currency volatility.

We believe that most of the constraints to growth listed above could, and should, be meaningfully addressed by government action. Solutions do exist. To this end the DA has mapped out a set of policy proposals that we believe will hasten growth and kick-start job creation. Each of the six constraints is discussed within the ASGI framework and our proposed solutions are presented.

The ASGI constraints are by no means a complete list of factors holding back growth in the South African economy. We believe that the low rate of savings in South Africa a cause for concern - one that government seems to have turned a blind eye to. Privatisation has stalled and the government's BEE program is still not broad based enough.

Perhaps the most binding constraint of all is the lack of political will on the ANC's part to make any real changes. A sincere attempt to implement all of the reforms that the ASGI constraints call for will place unbearable strain on the tripartite alliance. The question that remains is whether tripartite alliance politics will triumph over job creation and growth.

Download full document (Busting the ASGI Constraints.doc)