CLAIRE BISSEKER: Why a jobs mandate for the Reserve Bank is a load of nonsense
A dual mandate has a better chance of actually worsening low growth and high unemployment
It is easy to see why grassroots ANC members, frustrated by stubbornly high and rising unemployment after a decade of slow growth, want to impose a jobs mandate on the Reserve Bank. Their belief is that if the Bank is compelled to target a rate of employment, and not just inflation, it will be forced to allow a bit more inflation in exchange for more growth and jobs.
To the uninformed, the trade-off is as simple as that. If only it were, but there are no shortcuts to prosperity. The danger in believing that if the Bank would just cut rates all would be well is that it shifts attention from the far harder reforms required to get growth going — such as fixing Eskom and curtailing corruption...
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