Economic Reform Too Slow

Statement by Geordin Hill-Lewis – Leader of the Democratic Alliance:

Following the latest Quarterly Labour Force Review released today it is clear that serious economic reform is urgently required. South Africa does not lack economic potential. It lacks political urgency.

Investors and businesses are still held back by red tape, unreliable basic services, failing ports and rail, and crime that makes it harder and more expensive to build, trade, transport goods, and employ people.

While the internal ANC crises affect their performance in national government like Phala Phala and criminal infiltration, they remain distracted from reform, and South Africans are paying the price in lost wages, closed opportunities, and families left behind.

The Democratic Alliance believes South Africa’s central national mission must be to get the economy growing and creating jobs. That requires urgent, practical reform. Economic reform has been too slow, too cautious, and too easily displaced by other political priorities. A country with unemployment at these levels cannot afford to treat growth as one item on a long agenda. It must be the agenda. Without a growing, job-creating economy our country will not succeed.

South Africa lost 345,000 jobs in the first quarter of 2026, while official unemployment rose to 32.7% and expanded unemployment climbed to 43.7%. These statistics represent hundreds of thousands of families facing greater insecurity, fewer opportunities, and less hope that hard work will be rewarded.

The DA will continue to push for the reforms needed to turn this economy around. Including cutting red tape, fixing basic services, enabling private sector participation in ports and rail, making communities safer, and creating the conditions for investment-led job creation. Where the DA governs, we focus relentlessly on the basics that make growth possible. Nationally, we will keep fighting for the reforms that can put millions more South Africans into work.

South Africa cannot accept mass unemployment as normal. A government that is serious about dignity must be serious about jobs. And a government that is serious about jobs must be serious about reform.