Oh, they were such heady days. In 2012, SA, like the world, was emerging from the global economic crisis when the National Planning Commission dropped the National Development Plan on the table with a mighty thump. Many of the ideas in the plan remain valid, but its projections are an illustration of the huge difference between SA’s hopes at the time and the actual outcome now. The plan’s growth proposal was met with hopeful admiration. "To achieve full employment, the country needs to create about 11-million more jobs in the next 20 years. We estimate that the economy would have to grow by about 5.4% on average every year over this period to achieve this aim." And so was born the "target" of 5.4% growth a year. A quarter of the way into the designated period, GDP growth has not come even vaguely close to that target. On Tuesday, there was a grand round of applause for SA achieving growth higher than forecast of 1.3% for the last year compared with 2016’s. As for sectors, the big su...
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