Mbeki's state of the nation address - what BUSA wants

The country has made great strides in addressing the major challenges of economic growth and social transformation. The economic policies that have been pursued by the democratic government have resulted in South Africa beginning to seriously address the gargantuan legacy of apartheid. However, in the midst of all the positive developments mentioned above, South Africa is still faced with the challenges of unemployment, poverty, crime, etc.

It is the view of business that the State of the Nation Address by the President of the Republic of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, should affirm the major economic initiatives and policies that have been undertaken by the government to date, but also provide new ideas to deal with the challenges still faced by our country.

As BUSA we wish to see the following issues addressed in the State of the Nation Address:

• The country is still committed to the growth, employment and anti-poverty goals of the Accelerated and Shared Initiative for South Africa (Asgi-SA) and that both government and the private sector should continue to throw their weight behind its urgent implementation as well as promoting better social delivery. This also creates an essential element of continuity and predictability in socio-economic policy;
• The state-of-the-nation speech should provide new ideas, leadership and direction for agreed policies and their effective implementation in the period ahead. In tandem with the private sector there remain pivotal challenges on the job creation, infrastructural, skills development and poverty alleviation fronts that require enhanced commitment;
• While BUSA acknowledges that both external and internal factors are likely to result in lower economic growth this year, it expects the state-of-the-nation address to emphasise the good fundamentals of the South African economy, and to reject any talk of a possible recession;
• To the extent that power outages are indeed negatively and seriously affecting South Africa's economy, BUSA expects the state-of-the-nation address to provide a positive and clear message on short-term measures to overcome the electricity crisis in ways that will do minimum damage to the economy. The more successfully South Africa can deal with the immediate electricity situation, the sooner the economy can resume its normal growth path. This urgently requires an inclusive and coordinated national effort, based on multi-stakeholder consultation;
• BUSA trusts that, in view of President Mbeki's previous commitment to boosting confidence in the criminal justice system, the state-of-the-nation address will contain details of a much-needed overhaul of the criminal justice system, so as to begin to turn the tide against crime in South Africa.

BUSA therefore generally hopes that the 2008 state-of-the-nation address will create an appropriate leadership framework within which both government and the private sector can continue to successfully cooperate to meet existing and new challenges in the South African economy.