R1-trillion: the cost of Jacob Zuma
The Zuma years cost SA an absolute fortune in terms of lost growth, taxes and jobs, a new report estimates
The SA economy could have been up to 30% or R1-trillion larger and created 2.5-million more jobs had the country kept pace with other emerging markets and Sub-Saharan African economies over the past decade. The government could also have collected R1-trillion more in tax had the economy performed closer to that of its peers and had tax collection remained efficient. These are the key findings of a Bureau for Economic Research (BER) research paper, "Ten Years After the Lehman collapse: SA’s Post-crisis Performance in Perspective", by BER economist Harri Kemp. He sets out to determine what could have happened had the Zuma years not robbed the economy of its potential. His estimates for what might have been had SA’s economic growth path simply reverted, after 2010, to pre-crisis trends provide a ballpark measure of a lost decade’s economic costs. The results are staggering, especially as the numbers don’t include the direct cost of the maladministration, corruption and policy missteps ...
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