Some R145-billion has been earmarked for investment in a range of projects around the country and many unemployed South Africans stand to benefit not only from the jobs but from new skills that they will acquire.
This emerged on Saturday when the much anticipated Growth and Development Summit saw about 300 people descend on Gallagher Estate in Midrand to witness the signing of an historic agreement for all parties to work together to revitalise South Africa’s economy and to create jobs.
Meanwhile a number of groups gathered outside the convention centre to voice concerns about the plight of the landless poor, those living with HIV/Aids and the inability of the unemployed in Soweto to pay up-front for electricity.
A group of Treatment Action Campaign supporters said the process lacked sufficient action on Aids.
”We are here to say we do need a programme of growth and development and you cannot have that without a plan to deal with HIV. The tragedy is that government hasn’t used this as an opportunity to get those with HIV hope,” TAC chairman Zackie Achmat told the group of mostly young TAC members.
All those involved in the formal proceedings, from President Thabo Mbeki, to community leaders seemed upbeat about the various proposals tabled at the summit.
Mbeki said conditions were in place to accelerate economic growth and development.
”We have identified a set of strategies that, if properly implemented, will take South Africa onto a higher growth trajectory.”
The idea for the event was given official substance by the president a year ago and culminated in a month long process of negotiation under the watchful eye of the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac).
Saturday’s summit which included the signing of an agreement by representatives from business, labour, the government and civil society was the culmination of that work.
What the final document produced was a plan-of-action for reconstruction and development which will see the creation of hundreds of thousands of jobs mostly in the building.
Government and business would fund the various projects, which would be done in partnership with local communities.
One of the most controversial elements of the document concerns an initiative to encourage financial investment in new projects from all strata of society.
It reads, ”The constituencies agreed to encourage investors, including businesses, retirement funds, the life insurance industry, government, labour and community to work towards investing five percent of their ‘investible’ income in financial instruments.”
Attie du Plessis, President of Business SA said the key words were ”encourage”, ”work towards” and ”appropriate financial instruments” thus scotching fears that all sectors of society would be burdened by an additional tax of some sort.
”It is not possible to spell out how this would work. There is no way we can go to businesses and prescribe to them. The key is to work towards the goal (of five percent). Suffice to say this is where we are. We have indicated a direction. We realise we need finance to do certain things.”
Du Plessis would not be drawn on what financial instruments were being considered.
”A financial instrument can be appropriate for one industry in terms of tax breaks but not appropriate for another.”
However, he did confirm that already the mining industry had pledged R100-billion and a number of other sectors R45-billion over the next five years.
Add to this the R105-billion (R35-billion a year for three years) pledged by Trevor Manuel in his budget speech for capital projects and a substantial amount of development is likely to take place, creating tens of thousands of jobs.
Snuki Zikalala, spokesman for Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana, said investors in the various schemes would be offered interest on their investment or incentives of other kinds.
He said the R145-billion identified by SA Business was only the tip of the iceberg.
”The pool has not been tapped yet,” he said.
Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said the five percent issue had caused the most headaches in reaching agreement.
”When there was a block, it was related to this paragraph. We came out with wording that accommodated our sharpest concerns. Working towards five percent is a good start. This is a product of negotiation crucial to investment and economic growth.” – Sapa