The former president has called for the movement of people and goods between South Africa and African states to be easier
Record breaking unemployment, the restrictive labour laws on small businesses and a dismal education system inhibit the circulation of resources leading to non-inclusive economies, said former president Kgalema Motlanthe.
Speaking at a webinar hosted by think tank Centre for Development and Enterprise on Wednesday, Motlanthe unpacked some of the most pressing issues the country is facing, including unemployment.
South Africa’s unemployment rate reached a fourth record high since 2008, when the quarterly labour force survey started, climbing to 35.3% in the fourth quarter of 2021 from 34.9% in the third quarter.
Motlanthe said the only way to solve unemployment was to not only improve access to micro-financing for small businesses but also to protect them from harmful laws during their infancy.
“Given our levels of unemployment we should try to get parliament to amend the Labour Relations Act to create space for small entrepreneurs and operators … and exempt them [small businesses] from being compelled to live up to the standards of the collective bargaining councils which have well organised unions on the one side and big employers on the other,” he said.
The Labour Relations Act provides for the formation of bargaining councils by employer organisations and trade unions. The purpose is usually that of seeking solutions to labour disputes, managing collective agreements and putting forward labour law and policy recommendations.
“The small employers are compelled by law to implement what is agreed to by big employers. There should be flexibility there and that can only be done by amending the Labour Relations Act,” Motlanthe said.
The former president also said that small businesses should not be rushed into the tax bracket because this suffocates them.
“The taxi industry, for years, hasn’t been paying tax. Today it’s a massive industry and is so organised that SARS [South African Revenue Service] can easily bring them into the bracket of taxpayers. But if you try to do that when they are still at their fledgeling stage and struggling, you just suffocate them. And you will not be able to address our levels of unemployment,” he said.
Motlanthe also highlighted the education systems as one of the country’s biggest handicaps inhibiting economic growth and employment.
“We must fix our education system. Our TVET [technical and vocational] colleges are not producing skills needed by our economy. If we are doing poorly in artisanal skills and it makes it that much more difficult to grow the economy,” he said.
All these problems have culminated under the leadership of the ANC. “When the leadership itself is compromised and having small-anya skeletons in their cupboards it leads to failure to act against obvious malfeasance,” said Motlanthe.
Talking about the state of the ANC, Motlanthe, who was its secretary general from 1997 to late 2007, said the party will not be a dominant force in South Africa in the future.
He explained his statement by saying that the results of the elections in 2016, as well as last year, indicate that the ANC is in a period of a state of flux that will result in a realignment of political forces.
The ANC won 46% of the vote in the 2021 local government elections, down from 54% in the last municipal elections five years ago.
Motlanthe said the ANC is within its rights to embark on efforts to renew itself. “South Africa should move on and at whatever point when the ANC believes it is a new formation it must catch up with South Africa. The ANC leadership now accepts that unless they do something about the trajectory on which they are orbiting there is no doubt that they will lose elections and eventually be irrelevant to the South African polity.”
Anathi Madubela is an Adamela Trust business reporter at the M&G.
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