Marion Edmunds
RDP roleplayers in government met this week — without Jay Naidoo — to grapple with the realisation that the RDP is too much “pie-in-the-sky” and needs to be grounded in practical projects that promote economic
Senior RDP officials, government leaders and technocrats met for three days in Cape Town to discuss ways to bring the RDP down to earth and set its projects in a context of a national economic growth
Minister of Trade and Industry Trevor Manuel opened the conference, saying the RDP needed “key choices and no jargon”. (The master of RDP jargon, Minister without Portfolio Jay Naidoo, did not attend the conference because he was overseas.)
The conference comes at a time of growing doubt about the ability of the RDP office to co-ordinate the implementation of the RDP, and increasing criticism of the government for not delivering what has been promised to the people.
Discussions on economic growth at the conference link back to discussions held by a special cabinet committee on economic growth created earlier this year, and interpreted by commentators as showing a new sense of urgency in government to get the economy on its feet.
Manuel said this week the time had arrived for government to move away from a needs-driven approach to the country’s problems, and to put the country on a new high-growth path.
This conference — seen as more of a workshop than a conference per se — will be followed up by another conference at the end of the year where, according to the RDP office, “a concrete national strategy for growth and development would be produced”.