4 February 2016 " As the SA economy shrinks, thousands of people are losing their jobs. Food prices are set to increase by at least 25%. Many farms are for sale. Agricultural unemployment will mushroom. Electricity provider Eskom wants a 17% tariff hike for its power. Credit ratings agency Fitch Ratings declares that the outlook for residential property and mortgage markets this year has severely deteriorated from last year, and that there will be no growth this year and an actual decline of 3% in 2017. Mines are closing. SA’s construction outlook is bleak. Previously declared government infrastructure projects are now on ice because of lack of funding. (Infrastructure expenditure in terms of the National Development Plan was set at R1trillion, a fairy tale figure when taken in the context of SA’s over-stretched budget.)
The president of Master Builders SA declared in his annual report that the steel, mining and construction industries were “in desperate need of an investment stimulus”. Government’s ineptitude and lack of reliability and trustworthiness have put paid to investors moving into these sectors any time soon. (Perhaps Mr. Zuma can call on his friends in the African Union to come up with some investment ideas for these beleaguered sectors.)
The list of catastrophes is endless. Transparency International has placed South Africa on a par with Senegal and Lesotho on its latest corruption list, and behind Ghana. Africa is once again the most corrupt continent. The official audit report for the city of Tshwane (Pretoria) for the year ending June 2015 reflected an “irregular” expenditure of R4 billion, according to press reports. All over the country the picture is the same. Government officials continue to declare that “we need to ensure” or ”we must address the challenges”. “We have improved the lives of many” declared Tshwane’s mayor Kgosientso Ramokgopa as the R4 billion scandal erupted.
The government and its officials are either deceitful or delusional, or perhaps both. Their policies are idealistic, not realistic, and they are not changing. Their words are palliative but do not have an honest resonance. The president’s government is corrupt through and through and he either ignores history or deliberately falsifies it. He still tells the world that “the people’s land” was stolen by whites when he knows this is historically and empirically false. He is preparing legislation to expropriate productive land in order to hold on to power.
And investors must come into this quagmire? We think not."
http://www.tlu.co.za
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