S.Africa’s Zuma targets economy in keynote address

Besieged South African President Jacob Zuma made his first public appearance in 10 days Tuesday to deliver a state of the nation address pledging “radical socio-economic transformation”.

Zuma, 72, who was hospitalised for two days for fatigue and tests before taking a week off, made a similar commitment at his inauguration for a second term last month.

He said Tuesday that “the economy takes centre stage” in efforts to combat poverty, inequality and unemployment 20 years after the end of apartheid.

To achieve transformation “we will embark on various measures and interventions to jumpstart the economy,” he said.

But his keynote address was thin on specifics apart from plans to tackle the country’s failing energy supply, which has led to blackouts as the winter sets in.

“The successful electrification programme which has changed the lives of many households was achieved by tapping into artificial electricity reserves, which had not been designed to cater for mass energy distribution,” he said.

“This situation calls for a radical transformation of the energy sector, to develop a sustainable energy mix that comprises coal, solar, wind, hydro, gas and nuclear energy.”

He said controversial shale gas “is recognised as a game changer for our economy” and would be pursued “within the framework of our good environmental laws”.

Zuma was speaking after a battering of bad economic news against a background of high unemployment, a crippling miners’ strike and protests over housing and service delivery.

Africa’s most developed economy contracted in the first quarter of the year, partly because of a protracted strike at the world’s biggest platinum mines.

Last week two key credit ratings agencies issued gloomy assessments of the country’s economy, with Standard & Poors lowering South Africa’s sovereign credit rating to just a notch above junk bond status and Fitch revising its outlook to negative from stable.

– ‘Remove obstacles to investment’ –

In a direct appeal to investors, Zuma said: “The low level of investments is a key constraint to economic growth.

“We are determined to work with the private sector to remove obstacles to investment.”

Last month, South Africa’s Reserve Bank slashed its growth forecast for this year from 2.6 percent to 2.1 percent.

With unemployment above 25 percent and inflation rising, Zuma’s administration has pledged to implement a National Development Plan aimed at cutting unemployment to 14 percent by 2020 and boosting the growth rate to 5.4 percent.

He blamed slow growth in part on the global economic slowdown and on “domestic conditions, such as the prolonged and at times violent strikes, and also the shortage of energy”.

“Given the impact of the untenable labour relations environment on the economy, it is critical for social partners to meet and deliberate on the violent nature and duration of the strikes.”

For its part, the government would “investigate the possibility of a national minimum wage”, Zuma said, without providing details.

Twenty years after Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress came to power at the end of apartheid, Zuma won a mandate for a second term in May 7 elections despite being embroiled in a scandal over the spending of some $23 million dollars on his private rural residence.