Last week, the government, civil society, labour and business sat for two days in Joburg trying to find ways to save and create jobs in a country marred by slow economic growth and the highest inequality known to man. My reading of the framework agreement entered into by the "social partners" afterwards leads me to believe that parts of the summit were tantamount to "doing the garden while the kitchen is on fire". Nowhere in the entire agreement is there any acknowledgement that the single most important deliverable to curb the unemployment challenge is economic growth. "Since 2014, economic growth in SA has slowed down and become more volatile. At the same time, we have not qualitatively reduced the joblessness and inequality that emerged before democracy. These twin burdens are the main blockage to sustained economic progress." This preamble is the only perspective offered by the summit on the importance of economic growth. Clearly, we have become experts at stating the problem, e...

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