Duma Gqubule

2020 was a challenging year for everybody, with no growth forecast in the economy, fears of a deep recession and a jobs bloodbath. Three experts contextualise this situation, focusing on what can be done in 2021 to slow down the spiral into an economic abyss

Over the past decade there have been 1 127 publicly announced black economic empowerment deals worth R232,6-billion, according to Ernst & Young. At the end of May, the JSE Securities Exchange had a market capitalisation of R2 800-billion. The black equity in the above companies is 0,36% of the market total. It can safely be assumed that the total is less than 1% of the JSE's market capitalisation.

If growth in the assets of the Public Investment Commissioners, which manages public sector pension funds, continues at more than 16,5% a year, it will completely dominate the South African economy in the next 12 years, to the detriment of social spending. ''If growth is to be halted, there are a number of options,'' says Gavan Duffy of the Alternative Information and Development Centre.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) is heading for a major showdown with the government over Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel's plans to corporatise the Public Investment Commissioners (PIC), which manages public sector pension funds worth more than R300-billion. Government is running up the national debt to keep up its payments into the state pension fund.

The government's paranoid, hysterical and nit-picking response to the recent United Nations Development Programme South Africa Human Development Report 2003 has shown that it does not have a single coherent proposal on what should be done to significantly increase the country's miserable rate of economic growth, writes Duma Gqubule.