DA sets out its economic offering to voters
The DA has outlined its economic blueprint to woo voters ahead of watershed provincial and national elections in 2024.
The official opposition party wants to be seen as a credible alternative to govern one of Africa’s largest economies as SA’s democracy reaches the 30-year mark.
The DA’s economic vision includes scrapping the government’s two-decade-old temporary jobs scheme as well as stabilising the public debt-to-GDP ratio through higher rates of economic growth and safeguarding the independence of the Reserve Bank.
It presented its vision at the weekend as an alternative to the ANC, after the governing party’s failure to arrest runaway joblessness, poverty, inequality and corruption.
The opposition party’s blueprint comes in a year in which the IMF expects economic growth of just 0.2%, rising to about 1.5% over the medium term, amid a deepening power crisis and transport and logistics constraints, which are strangling economic activity.
The DA’s economic policy resolutions were adopted by the highest decision-making body, the federal council, in 2022 and affirmed by the majority of the 2,000 delegates at its internal leadership conference at the weekend. John Steenhuisen was re-elected the party’s leader, winning 83% of the votes against rival Mpho Phalatse’s 17%.
“The DA places the blame for poor economic growth and joblessness squarely on the ANC’s policies, as well as ANC actions such as corruption and state capture,” the party said.
However, it shied away from clearly outlining its position on employment equity, affirmative action and broad-based BEE.
It said its plan to scrap the use of temporary public sector jobs programmes such as the Expanded Public Works Programme and focus instead on skills development would create a pathway to better-paying private sector jobs.
The DA’s federal finance chair, Dion George, said the programme had created cheap labour for government projects and this was unsustainable in
SA’s low-growth economy, which is being hamstrung by consistent power cuts that often leave households and businesses without electricity for up to 10 hours a day.
“We need to create something that people can leverage and walk away [from] with a skill,” George told Business Day on the sidelines of the congress.
The government spends about R3bn a year on the Expanded Public Works Programme, which creates job opportunities in areas such as road maintenance, early childhood development and homebased community care.
It is not clear whether the DA also seeks to scrap the newer and much larger Presidential Employment Stimulus programme, which has an annual budget of more than R11bn.
The ANC, at its December 2022 national conference, reiterated proposals to nationalise the Reserve Bank. However, a push within the ANC to broaden the Bank’s mandate to force it to play a bigger role in supporting the economy was rejected.
The DA countered at the weekend, saying it “rejects threats to erode the independence of the Reserve Bank through nationalisation, as changing its mandate will not resolve the underlying problems in the economy”.
The economic policy blueprint comes as the party gears up to try to oust the ANC in the 2024 national elections after its own internal and ANC polling showed the ANC’s support is expected to dip below 50% for the first time since 1994. This will potentially force the ANC to form coalitions with other political parties in which the DA aims to be an “anchor tenant”.
“But, of course, the preferable option is to win an overall majority for the DA, as we have in 15 municipalities, across four provinces,” said the DA’s organisational report presented by federal council chair Helen Zille, during the party’s internal leadership contest.
The party is already courting the IFP and Freedom Front Plus to secure the votes for a cooperation agreement should the ANC lose power by a big margin in the 2024 elections.