South Africa’s unemployment crisis demands far greater urgency in economic reform than is currently being shown.
The latest official statistics show that unemployment rose to 33.6% in the second quarter of this year. Among young people, unemployment is now 47.4%. There are now around 8.5 million South Africans actively looking for work.
These numbers should shake us out of any sense that economic reform can proceed at the current pace.
The Government of National Unity was formed at a moment of enormous possibility. South Africans voted for change. Political parties that had spent decades opposing one another agreed to work together. And, briefly, confidence improved. The country was given an opportunity to break with years of stagnation.
But political change means very little if it does not produce economic change.
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And on that score, we are simply not moving fast enough.
South Africa has recorded several consecutive quarters of economic growth, and the economy is larger today than when the GNU was formed. That is encouraging.
But growth of 0.5% in the first quarter of this year is nowhere close to what a country with our unemployment rate requires.
We cannot celebrate crawling forwards just because we have stopped going backwards.
If businesses invest and grow, they hire people. If entrepreneurs can start businesses more easily, they create opportunity. If infrastructure works, investment follows. If government makes productive activity more difficult, expensive and uncertain, growth suffers.
The theory is straightforward.
Our problem is execution.
South Africa has spent years discussing many of the reforms we already know we need. These include opening our railways and ports to greater private participation, attracting private capital into infrastructure, improving energy security, making it easier to start and expand a business, cutting unnecessary red tape, fixing municipalities and removing policies that deter investment and job creation.
The GNU should give us the political space to do these things faster.
Instead, too much reform still moves at the traditional speed of government. But South Africans need urgency.
Reforms should come with deadlines and named political responsibility. The GNU must take South Africans into its confidence by setting out clearly what will be reformed, who is responsible for doing it, by when it will be done, and what measurable difference it is expected to make. Progress should be published and tracked openly.
A DA-led national government would immediately scrap regulations that serve no useful purpose and make it easier, not harder, to invest and employ. We would welcome private investment rather than treating it with suspicion, and unlock far more private capital for the infrastructure South Africa desperately needs. And where the state cannot deliver efficiently on its own, we would be pragmatic enough to partner with those who can. The test would be simple: does it work, and does it improve people’s lives?
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None of this requires much fanfare. It requires a simple obsession with what works and getting the basics right.
The GNU will ultimately be judged by outcomes, not intentions. South Africans will assess the success of the GNU by whether they could find a job or grow their income. And whether our children have more reason to believe their future is here.
I believe the GNU can still be a turning point for South Africa. I believe we can grow much faster than we are growing now. I believe we can create millions of opportunities for people who today feel locked out of the economy.
But belief must be matched by action.
South Africa cannot afford incrementalism. Not with 8.5 million people searching for work. Not with half a generation of young people unable to find a foothold in the economy.
This can be done. We are not short of ideas, capital, entrepreneurs or capable South Africans. What we need now is the political will to move with urgency and get out of the way so those ideas, capital, entrepreneurs and capable South Africans can grow their businesses and create jobs.
That is how South Africa can work – for everyone.
Geordin Hill-Lewis
DA Federal Leader
