SAMANTHA ENSLIN-PAYNE: Worse news follows bad, and don't look to business or state
The country is now in what many say is an economic crisis
Late last week, Fitch downgraded the outlook on SA's rating to negative, and, since Monday, the bad news has just kept on coming, driving this optimist to pessimism. Unemployment is at its worst level in more than a decade, Eskom shows no signs of a recovery as losses continue to mount and plans by the government to rectify the situation seem to have stalled before they began. Corporate SA offers no hope, either, with one of SA's oldest companies, according to the court, flouting procedure so it could fire its CEO, while other companies continue to count the costs of offshore misadventures - all showing that leadership in the private sector is also wanting.
Stats SA reported this week that unemployment had grown to 29%, with the number increasing by 455,000 to 6.7-million people without jobs in the second quarter. Employment increased in agriculture and the informal sector, but the 114,000 additional jobs in the informal sector mostly mean that people are barely making do, gen...
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