ISAAH MHLANGA: State’s investment strike contradicts its employment ambitions
To create jobs SA needs to focus on investment- and not consumption policies such as the basic income grant
Investment by the general government contracted 1.4% per year on average between 2010 and 2020. Investment by public corporations contracted 5.1%, while private sector investment contracted just 0.2% over the same period. Consequently, total investment in the country contracted an annual average of 1.2%.
What these figures show is that the SA government has been on an investment strike over the past decade, which is contrary to ambitions of generating employment growth. Three years have gone by since the first investment conference, which aimed to attract R1.3-trillion. From 2018, total investment growth has gone in the opposite direction, contracting an annual average of 6.4%. ..
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