Zuma bent on making investment painless
PRESIDENT Jacob Zuma is carrying through on his promise to business to remove obstacles to creating a conducive climate for local investment.
Zuma will also meet labour in the next two weeks in a bid to fix the state of the economy.
This was confirmed by Zuma in Parliament yesterday in his annual address to the National House of Traditional Leaders.
Zuma told the traditional leaders, some of his cabinet members and provincial MECs that he would meet his interministerial team in Pretoria today on promoting local investment to reignite growth.
“I asked the business community for the first time to send me a contribution in the form of a submission on what exists in the regulatory environment that makes it difficult for them to do business with ease,” he told the traditional leaders.
Zuma said he would discuss the business sector’s proposal at today’s meeting with his ministers.
In his State of the Nation address in February, Zuma said there had been a call for the removal of regulatory obstacles to allow business to invest locally. One of the initiatives was to cut red tape. They would also look at whether there were legislative impediments for business, he said.
The interministerial committee (IMC) would ensure that there was a conducive climate in South Africa for investment.
He would meet labour in the next two weeks to discuss the state of the economy and promoting investment.
Labour complained of being left out of the process when Zuma met top chief executives in Cape Town last month.
However, after that meeting the president indicated that he was willing to meet labour as an important player in the economy.
Zuma’s second term has been focused on fixing the economy. The meeting with the IMC on investment comes days after Statistics SA released depressing figures. It said the economy grew by 1.3 percent in 2015, which was lower than the previous year.
However, institutions like the World Bank and IMF have projected growth of less than 1 percent this year.
Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan told MPs that growth was not a mathematical formula but a combination of factors, including savings and macroeconomic stability.
The catalyst factor for growth had to be something sustainable.