Election 2004 Manifesto: Part 3
Part 3 deals with Job Creation, including the Challenges thereof and the ID's Solution. It also includes sections on Job Creation through Public Works, Rural Development and Trade Policy.
JOB
CREATION
Challenges:
Job creation must be our number one priority. Government has failed dismally over the last 10 years to create jobs. Unemployment is at 40% and continues to rise. 70% of those who are unemployed have never enjoyed the dignity of work. The youth in South Africa are struggling to find opportunities to work with almost 72% of the unemployed being under the age of 35. This makes a mockery of attempts to alleviate poverty or restore human dignity to our people.
Government must create the right economic environment to help the private sector as the prime creator of new jobs. South Africa's economy is structured along a great divide between a globally integrated formal economy and an efficient, but neglected informal economy. The ID believes that a bridge needs to be built between these two sectors of our economy so that economic growth will translate into job creation. This bridge must be built through prioritising the needs of the informal economy.
Creating the right economic conditions for growth and job creation in South Africa requires the government to strengthen and support both the demand and supply side of the economy. Greater support should be given to the small-scale sector of South Africa's economy. It is a global reality that the greatest job creation potential rests with small and medium size enterprises.
The ANC government is preoccupied with racial transformation of the big public listed companies in the formal sector, instead of concentrating on providing the necessary support for our entrepreneurs and small businesses to enter the mainstream economy.
ID's Solutions for Job Creation:
Challenges:
Job creation must be our number one priority. Government has failed dismally over the last 10 years to create jobs. Unemployment is at 40% and continues to rise. 70% of those who are unemployed have never enjoyed the dignity of work. The youth in South Africa are struggling to find opportunities to work with almost 72% of the unemployed being under the age of 35. This makes a mockery of attempts to alleviate poverty or restore human dignity to our people.
Government must create the right economic environment to help the private sector as the prime creator of new jobs. South Africa's economy is structured along a great divide between a globally integrated formal economy and an efficient, but neglected informal economy. The ID believes that a bridge needs to be built between these two sectors of our economy so that economic growth will translate into job creation. This bridge must be built through prioritising the needs of the informal economy.
Creating the right economic conditions for growth and job creation in South Africa requires the government to strengthen and support both the demand and supply side of the economy. Greater support should be given to the small-scale sector of South Africa's economy. It is a global reality that the greatest job creation potential rests with small and medium size enterprises.
The ANC government is preoccupied with racial transformation of the big public listed companies in the formal sector, instead of concentrating on providing the necessary support for our entrepreneurs and small businesses to enter the mainstream economy.
ID's Solutions for Job Creation:
- Reform the lending criteria of agencies so that they incorporate small and micro-enterprises in their plans.
- Root out corruption and nepotism in government lending programmes.
- Greater access to and affordable credit for small scale and informal businesses.
- Streamline bureaucracy for establishing new businesses.
- To better serve micro-enterprise, government must double the existing number of local service centres and satellites. These satellites would enable rural women involved in small, micro- and medium-sized enterprises.
- Put in place the essential infrastructure to enable entrepreneurs to gain access to markets, especially telecommunications and roads.
- Ensure that SMME are given most of the contracts to implement the R100 million infra-structural development plans of government.
- Local government should review zoning and licensing regulations to end discrimination against micro and small enterprises.
- Establish a special programme to ensure government support for women entrepreneurs.
- Bridge the Digital Divide: one of the greatest causes of South Africa's structural unemployment is our mismatch of skills. It is imperative that South Africa's youth is skilled in the areas in which the global economy is moving.
- Cut the exorbitant costs of telecommunications and have free call to Internet Service Providers. ID strongly argues for the market to be opened to more companies and technologies.
- Government's current National Small Business Strategy concentrates on supply-side issues while ignoring demand-side factors, so potential entrepreneurs are assisted to grow businesses in local economies that do not have the resources to buy their goods and services. ID would increase the demand side of these economies by transferring income to resource-deprived areas through grants and targeted public works programmes.
Job Creation Through Public Works
The ID supports the concept of an expanded public works programme to provide temporary employment to large numbers of the unemployed while at the same time upgrading the infrastructure of the country.
Unfortunately, the government's record on public works schemes has been poor and they have failed to implement previous promises. ID would argue for public works programmes to be directed at:
- Infrastructure Development: including roads, bridges, water and sanitation and telecommunications.
- Environmental services: currently the most effective public works scheme is the Working for Water Programme that employs over 60 000 people. This model could be expanded to other environmental areas such as organic farming and coastal care.
Job Creation Through Rural Development
The ANC's current agricultural policy provides most of its support to large- and medium-scale black farmers at the expense of small-scale producers. ID believes that this is a short-sighted approach ignores the huge productive potential of small-scale farmers in our stagnating rural areas.
ID's Solutions:
- Expanding the asset base of the rural poor through an appropriately funded land reform programme. A well-funded land reform programme with real post-transfer agricultural support would lead to the rural poor gaining access to a sustainable livelihood.
- Establish Organic Farming Centres of Excellence. ID would allocate some of the public works programme budget to building organic farming centres of excellence in the rural areas. The unemployed in surrounding areas could be trained as agricultural extension workers and paid a salary to equip small-scale farmers with organic farming skills. This would allow farmers to tap into the huge and growing international market for organic produce.
Job Creation Through Trade Policy
Although the ID supports South Africa's entry into the global market after years of isolation, we would question the speed and the human cost at which it has taken place. We have gone far beyond the requirements of the World Trade Organisation in reducing our tariff barriers. In agriculture and textiles we have lost over half a million jobs over the last ten years. The ID argues that we need to evaluate our current trade policy and revise it to avoid the further loss of jobs. The ID also supports the formation of an influential block of developing countries to lobby for the reciprocal removal of industrialised countries' agricultural subsidies.
