Growing the economy

Infrastructure investment is key to growing South Africa’s economy, to create jobs, empower small businesses and provide services to citizens, said President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Delivering his first State of the Nation Address in Parliament in Cape Town President Ramaphosa said government has invested heavily in new roads, power stations, schools and other infrastructure.

Some of the projects are taking time to get off the ground and are aimed at enhancing government’s efforts to develop the country’s infrastructure.

To address this, President Ramaphosa said he will put a team together to speed up implementation of new projects, particularly water and health facilities as well as road maintenance.

“We have learnt some valuable lessons from our experience in building all the new infrastructure, which will inform our way ahead. We will focus on improvements in our budget and monitoring systems, improve the integration of projects and build a broad compact on infrastructure with business and organised labour,” said President.

Ultimately, he said, the growth of South Africa’s economy will be sustained by small businesses, as is the case in many countries.

“It is our shared responsibility to grow this vital sector of the economy,” he said.