Declare jobs crisis

THE PAC is not appalled by the recent statistics by Stats South Africa; we are, however, worried about the increasing rate of unemployment, which is responsible for other societal ailments such as poverty, crime and HIV/Aids.

The PAC strongly calls for the government to declare unemployment a national crisis; in any sober and serious state that would already have happened in the late 1990s.

The PAC does not believe that the figure presented by StatsSA as 27.2% is a true reflection of the situation at the ground level. We believe that the unemployment rate is above 60%, if we are to avoid any “scientific guess”.

The majority of our people are living below the poverty line and inequality is widening, while the government has no proper plan to arrest and address our immediate crisis. We are one of the countries, along with Brazil, which has developed an unfriendly economic system.

We have a system which caters only for the elite group, while the majority of our people are outside the economy.

The PAC has been saying over many decades that all the socio-economic problems that we face are the symptoms of the original root of the problem, which is the dispossession of the land.

We tried to make our voice heard during Codesa when we said: “Land first, all shall follow.” We have always acknowledged that the dispossession of land was the original cause of all our problems.

We acknowledge the fact that today we have been able to achieve national dialogue about the agrarian question. However, we are not happy with the manner in which it is being spearheaded.

We are calling for land repossession, which will allow us to repossess our own mines, oceans, forestry, game and everything which will improve our livelihoods, as well as placing us into our own economy, which has excluded us for about four centuries now.

We do not buy the story that the unemployment growth rate is low.