Anemic Growth as ANC
Fails to Provide Stimulus
New figures released by the SA Central Bank yesterday show the lapidated state of the economy and the damage caused by a reckless spending spree of the ANC regime, fleeced public coffers and the quicksand of high debt of the public sector.
South Africa's GDP rose by a weak 1.6% from a year ago, falling far short to compensate for the 8.3% contraction of the economy from mid-2008 to late 2009. Even this pathetic increase was distorted by the 4.6% expansion in the first Quarter of 2010, solely boosted by the mining sector (+15.4%) due to foreign demand. If the mining industry and the construction sector, which was helped by activities around the WC2010 projects and will cease in June, are subtracted from the growth figure, the economy actually continued its downward spiral, posting a continuation of the ANC induced recession. As a result the unemployment numbers will go up for another 4-6 months, especially in the northern tier states Limpopo, Mpuma-Langa, North-West, Gauteng and Kwazulu-Natal. Already the ANC Government has fallen short of its trumpeted (or better, Vuvuzela-ed) goal to create 440,000 new jobs by now, bearing responsibility for the loss of nearly 600,000 jobs instead.
Figures on gross domestic product (GDP), released yesterday by Statistics SA, recorded quarter-on-quarter growth of 4.6 percent. The figure is adjusted for inflation and seasonal factors and annualised. The mining sector expanded 15.4 percent due to foreign demand, after growing 4.6 percent in the previous quarter, while related manufacturing grew 8.4 percent.
In an interview with SABC I cautioned the government against reading too much into the data which suggest a recovery on superficial glance. It remains troubling that the economic activity is not broadly based nor carried by domestic demand and momentum. With justifiable fear of a double-dip recession abroad - especially within the eurozone - a recovery purely driven by foreign demand is feeble and fragile. I also point out that growth of less than 2% on a year-on-year basis cannot create new jobs. "The ANC not only disappoints all South Africans across the board, but it fails especially hard and deplorably the weakest of society, their black core electorate," I finished my Quarterly summary.
[Release 25-may-2010 22:42]
No comments:
Post a Comment