Yet again Ace Magashule is lying and deceiving the country. As long as he continues with his maverick policies and deception, as Secretary General of the ANC, we must hold the ANC to account for their failures, particularly for causing the jobs crisis which is now a “National emergency” if not a disaster.
As if to justify probably the highest unemployment rate in the world, for a country not at war, he glibly claims that it is an international problem, with people all over the world losing jobs. While people may well be displaced by technology as the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” kicks in all over the world new jobs are also being created and being filled.
We should pray to have the unemployment problems of other countries -3,7% in the USA, 3,8% in the UK, 3,1% in Germany, 5,2% in Australia-almost record lows for all these countries. Well these are all developed countries, you may argue, so let’s look at countries we like to associate ourselves with in BRICS-Russia 4,5% and Brazil 12,5% still well below the 14% which is targeted by the ANC. Even though I would question the data, because it is in a deep economic crisis, Venezuela reports an unemployment rate of 7,3%.
In total numbers, the USA with a population 5 times ours, has fewer unemployed at 6 million people, than we do at nearly 7 million. Likewise the UK with a larger population than ours, has only 1,5 million people unemployed.
Ace and the ANC are lying and deliberately pulling the wool over our eyes using red-herring tactics.
While I differ completely in the remedy I would propose, I must agree completely Zwelinzima Vavi of the South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) General-Secretary when he says that the increase in unemployment comes as no surprise and will continue to grow as long as the current policies are kept in place by the governing ANC.