Private sector pledges R100bn for jobs
PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa has accused his critics of being impatient with his administration as the annual SA Investment Conference kicked off yesterday, with more than R100 billion being pledged by the private sector towards job creation.
Ramaphosa initiated the annual event last year as part of reigniting the country’s economy and addressing growing unemployment, but has over time been criticised of organising talk shops that do not produce concrete results in terms of job creation.
Addressing delegates at the conference, Ramaphosa said critics were not realistic in their expectations about his five-year-term investment drive, adding that the commitments made by business would create “enormous jobs” and revive the economy in the long term.
“Some people tend to say we want to see all that happening tomorrow. Life does not work that way. We need to take a medium- and a long-term view. We need to remain focused on what we want to achieve.”
For the next five years, the president aims to attract around R1.2 trillion in investment and last year’s inaugural investment raked in about R300bn.
Ramaphosa maintained that most of the money received had already been put into programmes that would revive the economy.
“Almost R240bn of that is now committed and is now working. The other portion, the R60bn, is going through the regulatory hoops. Many people were critical, dismissing this whole effort that we are all involved in and saying this is just a talk shop.”
Yesterday, the New Development Bank committed R23bn in investment, while the Agricultural Development Agency committed R12.9bn.
Politician turned businessperson Roelf Meyer said the agency investment would bring jobs and farming opportunities to South Africans.
Telecommunications giant MTN committed to investing R50bn in the next five years.
Ramaphosa said his administration was also hard at work trying to remove impediments and constraints to inclusive economic growth through policy consistence, regulatory certainty, fiscal responsibility and decisive interventions to stimulate economic activity.
“Central to our efforts to ignite growth as well as to create jobs is an ambitious, execution-oriented industrial strategy which is founded on partnerships between government, labour and industry.”
Anglo American chief executive Mark Cutifani said the company had invested R15bn in a project in South Africa, adding that its operations in the country were among the most competitive and productive in the world.
“In fact, South Africa is our best destination in terms of unit operating costs... does reflect the quality of the assets. But it also reflects the quality of the people, and in particular how we have been able to work with the regulators in making changes to the business,” Cutifani said.
Ramaphosa, however, admitted that the country’s economy was still ailing. “Investment has dwindled and the rate of unemployment has also increased. Today we are reeling and feeling the effects of several years of state capture and corruption, the erosion of important public institutions and the resultant policy malaise.”