SA continues to face a constrained economic and fiscal environment due to adverse economic conditions, with the deterioration in the first half of 2017 reflective of the outlook. Increased political and institutional uncertainty, lower global commodity prices, drought conditions, uncertainty over the nuclear deal, rising debt-service costs, high unemployment rates and the sovereign credit rating downgrades all increase vulnerabilities within the economy. In addition to SA’s economic woes, the inherent structural issues facing the economy include slow economic growth, low quality of education, labour market rigidity, high unemployment rates, infrastructure backlogs and crime and corruption. Structural reforms needed to deal with these issues include relaxing labour law inflexibility, privatising state-owned enterprises, reducing the government wage bill, stopping corruption, creating policy certainty, increasing the savings rate and becoming export driven. In a country where unemploy...
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