South African President Jacob Zuma (C) deliveres his State of the Nation Address (SONA) at the joint sitting of Parliament in Cape Town, South Africa, on Feb. 11, 2016 [Xinhua]South African President Jacob Zuma has stressed on an “effective turnaround plan” to steer the economy away from the current slump during what turned out to be an eventful “State of the Nation Address” to parliament on Thursday.
Zuma vowed that his government will “remove the red tape and reviews any legislative and regulatory blockages” that hinder investment.
“Government is developing a One Stop Shop/Invest SA initiative to signal that South Africa is truly open for business. We have established an Inter-Ministerial Committee on Investment Promotion which will ensure the success of investment promotion initiatives,” Zuma added.
He also promised that state-owned companies “that are no longer relevant to our development agenda will be phased out”.
Earlier during the President’s speech, there was angry sloganeering by opposition members.
Julius Malema, the leader of the far-left opposition party Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), staged a noisy walkout disrupting Zuma’s speech in the parliament on Thursday.
Lawmakers from the opposition Congress of the People party had left the chamber earlier, demanding that Zuma resign.
On Friday morning, Zuma told national broadcaster SABC that last night’s disruptions are “a wrong culture” and that “people have a right to hear”.
Zuma blamed the nation’s economic woes to both global and domestic factors.
“Our reality right now is that global growth still remains muted. The economies of two of our partners in BRICS: Brazil and Russia – are expected to contract this year. The third, China, will not register the kind of robust growth that it is known for. Because our economy is relatively small and open, it is affected by all of these developments,” Zuma noted.
The central bank has forecast growth will reach only 0.9 per cent this year and unemployment is at 25 per cent.
In his speech, Zuma said South Africa will procure nuclear energy at an affordable pace and scale.
“We will procure nuclear energy on a scale and pace that the country can afford,” Zuma said.
South Africa hopes to install 9,600 megawatts of nuclear power in the next 15 years to address chronic electricity shortages but the cost of the project estimated at about $100 billion has raised budgetary concerns.
In an infrastructure push, President Zuma said 7 billion rand have been committed to new port facilities.
Zuma also announced that South Africa has set up a state-owned pharmaceutical company that would compete with local firms in supplying medicines to public hospitals.
Zuma also announced that the government would implement austerity measures and asked South African lawmakers to reconsider whether the country can afford to maintain two capitals, Pretoria as the administrative one and Cape Town as the legislative capital.
“We all have a lot to do to turn the economy around and to cut wastage. We will go through a difficult period for a while, but when the economy recovers, we will be proud of ourselves for having done the right thing”, Zuma said.
In its November review of South Africa’s credit status, Standard & Poor’s left its rating one notch above sub-investment grade.
Zuma also referred to gains from South Africa’s membership in the BRICS bloc.
He pointed out that China has announced investments of $10 billion for infrastructure projects in South Africa.
China and South Africa inked bilateral deals worth $6.5 billion during a state visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping in December .
Beijing’s relations with Pretoria have flourished in the past decade with massive Chinese investment across the country and the African continent.
“The Agreement by BRICS nations on the New Development Bank or BRICS Bank came into force and the bank is envisaged to approve its inaugural projects in April this year,” he told lawmakers on Thursday.
Zuma will attend the 8th BRICS Summit in New Delhi later this summer.
TBP
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