BusinessLive reports that leaders of various economic sectors told delegates at a Business Unity SA (Busa) indaba on Tuesday that policy incoherence and uncertainty has hampered business growth and has led to massive job losses.
They said that the country continued to lose billions of rands in direct investment and the capacity to create millions of jobs due to policy confusion and weak government support. A new Public-Private Growth Initiative (PPGI), which was introduced at the indaba, is advocating the formulation of five-year, sector-based plans. The PPGI — led by Toyota Europe and Africa CEO Johan van Zyl, the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) professor Nick Binedell, and former constitutional negotiator Roelf Meyer — has done work in 22 sectors, several of which made presentations at the indaba. The chair of the Hospital Association of SA, Melanie Da Costa, painted a grim picture of the future of the health sector, also due to proposed legislation that she said would wipe out 132,000 jobs and decrease the sector’s contribution to GDP by R24bn. The manufacturing sector’s contribution to GDP, which fell from 24% in the 1980s to less than 13% in 2017, would continue to lag behind other emerging markets without serious government intervention, it was claimed. The tourism sector had the capacity to create an additional 2-million jobs by 2030, said the industry’s Blacky Komani.
- Read Theto Mahlakoana’s report in the above regard in full at BusinessLive
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page