The ANC on Monday announced a range of measures it said would be implemented immediately in order to grow the economy and create much needed employment opportunities.
President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the turnaround plan following a three day meeting of the party’s National Executive Committee in Boksburg emphasising that energy reliability rail-freight efficiency are at the centre of the plan.
“We welcome, in particular, the progress made in resolving load-shedding, expanding generation (capacity, and establishing a competitive electricity market. We also have seen great strides in the progress that is being made in the logistics sector, including steady recovery in transnet’s performance. But the impact of this work is yet to be felt in our growth and employment figures,” said Ramaphosa.
The president called on ANC deployees in the government to do their utmost best warning that current rising poverty levels meant that there was no time waste.
“The intractable impact of poverty, unemployment, and the high cost of living on the daily lives of South Africans is unacceptable. The persistence of low-growth economic growth, severe unemployment, and the impact of global trade instability requires that we should take action. We must, therefore, accelerate the pace and massively scale up the efforts that we need to take,” said Ramaphosa.
He said the plan consists of ten priorities ranging from improving infrastructure to incentivising investment.
“The first intervention is to use electricity tariffs and investment in transmission, infrastructure, (that is, the grid, to drive economic activity. Among other things, this means preferential electricity tariffs for ferrochrome and manganese as well as steel. We will first track the transmission development plan to establish or to install 14,000 kilometers of transmission lines for our electricity grid,” he said.
“The third intervention is to rebuild our chrome and manganese industries. We will finalise chrome and manganese export tariffs, implement defensive duties on dumped imports, and expand alloys and battery precursor production,” the President said.
The ANC is also working on guidelines for the selection of candidates who will represent the party in the next local government elections expected to be held sometime in 2026.