ActionSA reiterates its call for the dismissal of the Ministers of Employment and Labour, Trade, Industry and Competition, and Small Business Development following StatsSA’s announcement today that the economy grew by a meagre 0.5% in the first quarter of 2026.
This comes just weeks after South Africa shed 345,000 jobs over the same period, further confirming that the Government of National Unity (GNU) is failing to confront the country’s twin crises of unemployment and economic stagnation.
These figures should surprise nobody. South Africa remains trapped in a cycle of low growth, declining investment and persistently high unemployment because government lacks both urgency and a credible plan to reverse these trends. While most comparable emerging economies continue to record annual growth rates of between 3% and 4%, South Africa managed only 0.6% growth in 2024 and 1.1% in 2025. The GNU cannot continue blaming external factors such as global trade uncertainty or commodity prices for an economic crisis that is overwhelmingly the result of domestic policy failures and decades of government corruption and inaction.
While ActionSA welcomes growth in sectors such as agriculture, finance and trade, we are deeply concerned by the continued decline of South Africa’s manufacturing sector, which contracted by 0.8% in the first quarter after shrinking by 0.6% in the final quarter of 2025. Manufacturing remains critical to creating sustainable, large-scale employment, yet South Africa’s industrial base continues to erode. Meanwhile, the construction industry shrunk by 5.4% in 2024 and 4.4% in 2025.
Government’s recently adopted Revised Industrial Development Strategy correctly identifies the need for affordable and reliable electricity, efficient ports and rail networks, and modern telecommunications infrastructure. However, these constraints have been evident for years, if not decades. The reality is that South Africa’s deindustrialisation is no longer merely continuing; it is accelerating under the GNU. Economic growth remains too weak to absorb new entrants into the labour market, let alone reduce our country’s chronic unemployment rate.
South Africans deserve a government that delivers growth, creates jobs and removes barriers to investment. Where ministers have consistently failed to achieve these objectives, accountability must follow.
ActionSA therefore reiterates its call for the President to replace those ministers whose departments continue to preside over economic decline and rising unemployment.
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Fun South African Fact: South Africa is part of BRICS.