What SA needs for inclusive, sustainable economic growth

Last Wednesday, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that most of the remaining restrictions to economic and social activities will be eased further to reopen the economy and allow a cautious return to social normalcy.

From a health and safety point of view, the marching orders are clear: in the absence of a safe and effective Covid-19 vaccine, we have to continue with the new normal, so to speak, of washing our hands, keeping a two-metre social distance and wearing face masks to protect ourselves and others.

What requires urgent figuring out is how we restart the rest of the economy safely without risking a return to a harder lockdown which has deepened the recession and cost many jobs.

There is a plan on the table on the road map to a sustainable recovery. As is his right, the president has taken the plan for endorsement by the cabinet.

In brief, the plan proposes infrastructure investment and re-industrialisation of the economy to create jobs and generate exports. A key part of the plan is to ensure an enabling environment is in place for these ambitions.

However, a few urgent ingredients to the success mix are required. First, government needs to immediately start the process of allocating the high-speed broadband spectrum. It boggles the mind why the delays have been allowed to persist. This is more concerning given the fact that at the start of the lockdown, it was possible to release high demand spectrum immediately, albeit on a temporary basis.

This has shown us what’s possible: prices of data, a key commodity during lockdown, fell slightly. A full allocation will, in all likelihood, reduce them significantly, benefiting corporate and individual consumers.

It is also vitally important that significant BEE be made a key criterion in the decision to allocate the new spectrum.

Second, while the tourism and hospitality sector has substantially been reopened by the Wednesday announcement, more detail needs to be ironed out in respect of which visitors will be allowed into our country and under what conditions they will be allowed.

The closure of borders and restrictions on international travel have meant that most destinations have been idling without activity and income. Worse, the R200m relief for the sector was insufficient.

Two things need to happen: first, more relief is required, to assist both South Africans and foreign visitors to explore our country; and second, policymakers need to be super cautious in reopening the borders. The last thing we want is to reopen the borders to the deadly virus.

In determining which countries’ tourists should be allowed, policymakers should be guided by hard facts not emotion. Among others, they should take into account the management of the pandemic by a country under consideration. For example, it would be counterproductive to allow visitors from a country whose authorities continue to deny science about the virus or where infections and deaths are on the rise.

While it’s undeniable that our country needs every dollar, euro, real, yuan, rupee, rouble, pound sterling and other currencies, we cannot put profits ahead of lives. We reached Wednesday’s milestone because we always understood the value of preserving lives and livelihoods. We have to continue this fight.

Third, we need to be as dispassionate about the role of the state in the economy. To be clear, the state has a pivotal role to play in the economy especially one that is still at our country’s stage of development. While this cannot be denied, we have to bring the debate about the role to finality. Crucially, this means that the government needs to identify a definitive list of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) that have a critical role to play in the economy.

For those that fulfil no strategic purpose to be in public hands, a clear exit strategy has to be mapped out with relevant stakeholders, especially labour.

What’s not helpful, though, is the prolonged indecisiveness and stringing employees along with promises that are not met. A case in point is the impasse about the restructuring of the national airline SA Airways and SA Express, the regional feeder airline. This has gone on for far too long. Employees of the airlines have lived with unacceptable uncertainty for months.

And lastly, the return to some normalcy means that now more than ever we require consequential leadership: we need to field our best athletes to win.