Population outpacing economy by a wide margin

THE COUNTRY is heading for a crisis based on mid-year population estimates alone as the growth in population is outpacing economic growth by a wide margin.

According to Statistics SA, the country’s population has grown by more than 1 million people in the last year, a stark contrast to the 3.2% contraction in the economy in the first quarter of this year.

Dawie Roodt, chief economist at the Efficient Group, said that South Africa was not prepared for the coming years. “Unless the government is prepared to make some very difficult political decisions, the country will not be able to deal with the growing workforce.”

South Africa’s current population stands at 58.78 million people, compared with 57.73 million recorded in the middle of last year. This rise can be attributed to increased life expectancy, decreasing infant mortality rates, a higher rate of survival from Aids and other diseases, and immigration to the country.

Roodt said for the economy to remain stable, it needs to grow at the same rate as the population. To maintain current employment levels, the economy would need to grow by more than 2%. The 3.2% GDP decrease and current trends indicate that the economy might not even grow as much as 0.5% this year.

The latest numbers show that the unemployment rate is 27.6%.

Owen Crankshaw, a professor at the University of Cape Town’s Department of Sociology, said while this number was very high, it was stable at the moment.

for the past week (July 22-28, 2019) is at 550m/l per day and last week’s consumption was at 583m/l per day.

The metro’s collective water consumption for the past week has decreased by 33 million litres per day.

City’s mayoral committee member for water and waste Xanthea Limberg said: “With more rain predicted over the next few days, all indications are that this upward trend will continue at least for this week.

“Although the outlook seems quite positive for now, we are not yet in a position where we can safely relax our water-savings efforts.

“We will only be able to make an informed decision around water restrictions at the end of the rainy season in October/November this year.”

Minister of Local Government, Environmental Affairs and Development Planning Anton Bredell said: “Four of the five major catchment areas now see dam levels in excess of 50% full.

“The ongoing problem area is the Gouritz River catchment area, which feeds a big part of the interior Karoo region.

“We remain concerned regarding the ongoing drought challenge, particularly to the agricultural sector in this region.”

Ratau said we may be getting a lot of rain, “however we need to keep in mind that we have already passed mid-winter season and a lot less rainfall can be expected over the upcoming months”.

“We still remain one of the most water-scarce countries, therefore we always need to remain conscious about how much water we use,” added Ratau.