Industrialisation a priority for job creation – ANC

The ANC plans to accelerate job creation by leading structural reforms and guiding increased levels of investment, focusing on industrialisation.

The ANC committee on economic transformation yesterday unpacked how the ANC-led government aimed to put South Africa to work through public employment programmes which create work opportunities in the public, small businesses and social sectors.

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As part of its priority one, the ruling party said it intended to improve job creation via industrialisation and revitalisation.

ANC’s NEC sub-committee deputy chair in economic transformation Zuko Godlimpi said the party’s manifesto proposed industrial interventions that would help in reorganising industrial strategies.

He said was important to starting thinking about industrial policy as a transmission channel.

“This means if you are going to have an increasing revenue base, there’s got to be improvement in productivity and output. If there is more productivity output, there is more revenue generated and therefore an expanded capacity by the fiscus to finance all of these things,” he said.

“But if you do not have industrial growth, over the long term you will not have the ability to sustain your fiscal position.” Godlimpi added the succession of industrialisation plans depended on the improvement of electricity transmission.

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“We acknowledge that for us to have a viable industrial strategy, we have to deal with the binding constraints: Transnet related logistics, Eskom related energy problems and water infrastructure,” he said.

Godlimpi said industrialisation was a long-term process and looking at the unemployment statistics in SA, the idea was to have 14 million jobs over time.

“But it won’t be over a five-year period. What this manifesto actually does is a change of gear. It says now the industrial strategy is going to be the overriding framework for all government police.

“So that means macroeconomic policy as a whole is going to be guided by ambitions to power up the state. So, it’s going to take us time, but we want to start in the first five years as, the launchpad for that over time,” he said.