Put the blame on ANC, says EFF on unemployment increase

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) has slammed the governing party following the 32,5% unemployment increase in the fourth quarter of 2020.

On Tuesday, Stats SA announced that 701,000 people in the country lost their jobs (1,7% increase), bringing the total number of unemployed people to 11.1 million.

Meanwhile, the EFF has labelled the devastating news as “a catastrophic state of affairs indicating the chronic failure of the government of the day”.

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“Unemployment in this country has been an economic pandemic that has characterised South Africa’s reality for over three decades.

“These figures reflect poor economic planning, mismanagement and misdiagnosis of economic problems on the part of the ANC, Treasury and its captains of industry.

“Despite the understandable impact of Covid-19 globally, the reality is that in our country, unemployment has been a permanent nemesis,” the party said in a statement on Tuesday.

The red berets further said the blame should be placed “squarely at the feet of the ANC”.

“The inability to use state power to lead massive industrial development based on labour intensive initiatives and protection of infant industries.”

The EFF continued to say: “To break out of chronic unemployment and lead massive industrial development, the country requires a collective plan that should be led by a democratic and corrupt free state which the ANC is uninterested and incapable of.

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“Unemployment is a pandemic whose vaccine is a total dispense with the ANC. There is nothing Ramaphosa and Mboweni will ever do to help the country break out of this cycle. To overcome, the people of South Africa must remove ANC from power or suffer complete economic degeneration.”

In October last year, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the Presidential Employment Stimulus as part of the Economic Reconstruction and Recovery Plan in response to the rise in unemployment during his address to a joint sitting of Parliament.

The Presidency further announced that more than 600,000 jobs have been supported or were currently open for applications under the Presidential Employment Stimulus last month.

Additional reporting from Ina Opperman

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