The MTDP Is Just a First Step

Dear Editor

The MTDP, as tabled today in the Performance, Monitoring and Evaluation Portfolio Committee in Parliament, is a good first step in developing a GNU growth and jobs agenda. Of course, it is the product of much discussion and considerable compromise between the parties in the GNU. That is as it should be, given the outcome of the election.

However, the MTDP does not go far enough or fast enough in terms of growth and jobs.

Our economy is in crisis.

Our fiscus is at breaking point and millions of South Africans are trapped in unrelenting joblessness and poverty.

Here are the salient facts:

• For 17 long years, we have remained firmly in the low growth trap of around 1% of GDP, a rate lower than population growth. This means South Africans are, on average, poorer today than they were 17 years ago.
• Unemployment remains the highest in the world at close to 42% as per the expanded definition, which is the measure that matters because so many people have given up looking for work.
• Around 28 million people rely on grants, but only 7.5 million pay income tax, and over half of that tax is levied on around half a million people.
• Our national debt ratio is now set to peak above 76% of GDP and will continue to rise unless we meet the growth projections on which the budget is based.
• As the Commissioner of SARS has said, we cannot raise taxes much further now because people will simply find ways not to pay them, and it will do little to improve revenue collection.

That is why the DA in the GNU will continue to engage the ANC and other parties to develop and drive a more aggressive growth agenda that will create jobs, bring prosperity, and save the fiscus from collapse.

We now need to go beyond the MTDP to consider the following growth-enhancing policies:

• Taking the transmission of energy away from Eskom, which should focus on competitive energy generation.
• Unleashing enterprise by slashing the red tape that makes it so difficult to start or grow small businesses.
• Liberating small and medium-sized businesses from collective bargaining agreements that make it difficult for them to employ more people.
• Eliminating tariffs on manufactured goods that are not produced in South Africa.
• Pursuing a foreign policy that aligns with our national interest and is not driven by ideology or misplaced historical loyalties.
• Right-sizing the state by eliminating waste and focusing spending on programmes that help drive a growth agenda in a measurable way.

These and other measures are now needed for the GNU’s policy plan to meet the overriding challenges of our time: growth and jobs.

Regards

John Steenhuisen MP
Leader of the Democratic Alliance