Govt must demonstrate fiscal prudence

Sir,

We’ve experienced a financial crisis, so there are plenty of lessons to be used in our transformation strategy. There is plenty to be done, what with public debt doubling. This has rendered the private sector incapacitated, thus prolonging the prospects of reversing the downward spiral of our economic growth that has struggled to hit the required mark while top performing countries in Africa have good growth averages.

We do recall that the definition of a First World country given then was not of a country with numerous skyscrapers but one where citizens are able to pursue their life goals and enjoy lives of value and dignity, where they enjoy basic human rights, have access to sufficient resources, such as education, healthcare and food security, as well as access to quality infrastructure, information and services.

The over 40 per cent of the population that remains unemployed cannot be faulted for asking what happened to dropping the unemployment rate. Our poverty rate also remains high, so clearly there is a lot of work to be done.

Promised

The wage bill has proven to be the biggest headache for Cabinet and public sector associations have promised to put up a fight as they face the prospects of another year without a cost-of-living adjustment. The only solution to this challenge is for government to demonstrate fiscal prudence in ways that will earn it the trust of its workers and the general public.

We need not remind Cabinet about food security which deserves to be on the list of priorities when drafting the national budget. It is unacceptable that we still have thousands of people in need of foodaid in a country that has an abundance of arable land and rich in alluvial soils.

We also need to get things right with our natural resources; mistakes of the past should not be repeated. Energy selfsufficiency is also a top priority and we need to move quickly in building capacity to provide our own electricity. We’ve waited too long and our coal is about to ‘expire’ if environmentalists have their way in dealing with climate change. A lot is expected of our Cabinet team and it cannot afford to get it wrong because the current state of affairs demand that this country will get one shot at making things right.

Thabiso