‘More jobs and an end to state capture’

THE ELECTION race kicked into high gear after the ANC fired the starting gun with the January 8 statement to celebrate 107 years since its founding.

ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa has been traipsing the northern and eastern parts of the country drumming up support for his “new dawn”.

Ramaphosa delivered the main address at the ANC’s 107th birthday celebrations in Durban, where he promised among other things, more jobs and an end to state capture.

Ramaphosa said the focus of the party’s manifesto was a plan to create many more jobs and ensure that all workers could earn a decent living.

“We live in a country where, by the broader definition, more than 9 million South Africans are unemployed.

“Out of every 10 young South Africans, four are neither in employment, nor education and training.

“This is a tragedy of vast proportions, a direct challenge to the promise of our democratic Constitution and the cause of great hardship and despair,” Ramaphosa said.

He said the most pressing task for the country was to set the economy on a higher path of shared growth and to transform its structure.

But the DA’s Geordin Hill-Lewis said the biggest focus of the ANC’s 2019 manifesto hinged on jobs, an area in which it had a failed track record.

“Ramaphosa boasted that the economy has tripled in size since 1994,” he said.

“What he failed to mention is that the unemployment rate has increased since Ramphosa took over as president.

“Even worse, the South African expanded youth unemployment rate is now at 50.1% – the highest in the world,” Hill-Lewis said.