Ferial Haffajee
A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but the jury’s out on whether Gear in any other guise is still the same economic policy. The African National Congress has won cheers (from its communist and trade union partners) and provoked jibes (from business and its press) with its stated intention to change targets set by the growth, employment and redistribution (Gear) strategy.
It is early days yet for both cheers and jibes. The party has not stated which targets will be changed. In any case, the growth and jobs targets long ago become an exercise in hopeless optimism – economic growth is almost stagnant and there has been a net decrease in employment, which means the economy has shed jobs.
New targets, if indeed any are set, are likely to be more realistic. What is more significant about the ANC announcement is that it opens the way to negotiate economic policy.
Previous government statements that Gear was “non-negotiable” led to some of the ugliest ruptures in the Tripartite Alliance and a softening of that stance is contained in its discussion paper The State, Property Relations and Social Transformation.
The shift is not roundly welcomed by economic hawks like Deputy President Thabo Mbeki and Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel. But many other ANC members in the government, shackled by Gear’s budget cuts, have led the push for change.
“The current international situation compels a revision of the targets and clearly one welcomes that,” said the South African Communist Party’s Jeremy Cronin. Next week’s Jobs Summit is likely to shed new light on government thinking and only then will it become clear whether there is a policy shift in economic thinking.
Commentators suggest there have been key shifts. These will be apparent at the jobs indaba, they say, where government, business, labour and civic organisations will announce 40 short-term work projects as well as a series of long-term measures to unlock job creation potential in the economy.
Among the areas to watch at the Jobs Summit are discussions on tariffs, a housing parastatal, privatisation and the budget deficit target. It is crucial for the Jobs Summit, says National Economic Development and Labour Council executive director Jayendra Naidoo, to find a way to get past the Gear debate.
“A balance has to be found between the fiscal and the social.” Naidoo says a successful response to unemployment is to find a way to negotiate the Gear hurdle, a package of short-term job creation measures and a long-term industrial development plan.
l Meanwhile, the release of the October 1996 Census shows that national unemployment stood at 33,9%. Unemployment is worst in the Eastern Cape (48,5%), the Northern Province (46%) and Kwazulu-Natal (39,1%).