President Zuma sacrifices jobs to save his own

Note to Editors: The following speech was delivered by DA Shadow Minister of Trade and Industry, Geordin Hill-Lewis MP, in the State of the Nation (SONA) Debate in the National Assembly this afternoon.

Speaker,

If ever South Africa needed final proof, last Thursday showed that the ANC will not listen, it will not learn, and it will never change.

The ANC must be voted out of office.

Seeing the Honourable President laugh at what he witnessed in this House, I was reminded that this President is a "win-at-all-costs" kind of politician. The worst kind, for whom political survival trumps all else.

We saw a President who is willing to sacrifice anything - the sanctity of Parliament, the Constitution, the future of South Africa - all to save himself.

He will not go quietly.

But he is guilty of no more grave indictment than the neglect with which he has treated the South African economy.

Madame Speaker, this President is the kind of leader who is happy for others to lose their jobs so that he can save his.

Make no mistake, Mr President, you must answer the questions about Nkandla. You are not above the law and you must account.

But let me be clear, Nkandla is not the most important charge the President faces.

The most important charge he faces, and that voters must hold him accountable for, is his government's wholesale destruction of good jobs and the failure to grow the economy.

This is his legacy.

There are now 1.6 million more unemployed people than on the day he took office.

That is the staggering number of people who are unemployed because of this President, but he has no shame in sacrificing all of their jobs to save his own.

That is 730 more unemployed South Africans per day since he has been President.

That is the measure of the destruction he has wrought on the economy.

President Zuma, by a mix of vague leadership and political expedience, you have broken our economy.

Mr President, on Thursday night you said "Siyasebenza. We are a nation at work".

Sometimes I wonder whether the President lives in the same country as us.

No, sir, we are not a nation at work.

36% of the nation is unemployed.

54% of the nation live below the poverty line, according to StatsSA.

GDP growth has dropped in every year of your presidency. Not once has it increased.

This is how South Africa will remember you.

This is how history will remember you.

If you are to have any hope of recovering your legacy now, you must take drastic action to reform the economy and back the policies that work.

But frankly I expect more of the same.

For example - President Zuma spoke with rare clarity at Davos about his commitment to not shying away from the tough reforms necessary to turn our economy around.

But no sooner had he returned, his claims that ‘South Africa is open for business' had been exposed as lacking all credibility by his announcement of a ban on foreign land ownership.

Here is a direct question that I'd like the President to answer in his response: Why do you say you are committed to attracting investment, but then consistently propose policies that are guaranteed to discourage investment and cost jobs?

It doesn't make sense. Are you really so scared of the radical left that you are prepared to surrender economic policy making to them?

Or is it just the worst kind of cynical politics in which you are pandering to the ‘anti-foreigner' instincts of some disaffected voters in Gauteng, the province in which you are most vulnerable?

I think it is just another example of you looking after your own political interests, rather than the nation's interests. Anything to cling to power.

President Zuma, South Africa needs to promote and attract - not to discourage and deter - new investment in our agri-business sectors so they can expand, produce more, export more, and employ more.

And on producing more, every SONA you've delivered has included a line about the money allocated to the DTI's Manufacturing Competitiveness Enhancement Programme (MCEP).

But speak to the average investor and they will tell you how dysfunctional this programme is. Businesses go bankrupt in the months and years they wait to even get a response to their emails.

That is no way to invigorate the economy.

The ideas in the New Growth Path and the Industrial Policy Action Plan are simply too weak to create millions of jobs, and the Cabinet is too divided to implement them anyway.

On that score, Mr President, you must settle the economic policy standoff in your cabinet. You must lead the economic policy-making process yourself.

You place far too much trust in Minister Davies and Minister Patel.

If Ministers Davies and Patel are telling you that the economy is performing well, or that the next big growth spurt is just around the corner, or that all that is wrong is the fault of the global economy, then they are misleading you.

They are giving you poor advice, and you should fire them.

Madam Speaker, South Africa is literally and figuratively in a dark place.

In these times, we need a President who wakes up every morning thinking about the economy, eager to find new ways to put South Africa on the investment map.

Instead, we have a President who spends every waking moment trying to stave off the latest crisis relating to his personal conduct.

A President who is happy to sacrifice the jobs of ordinary people to save his own.

The DA is not in the business of ‘protest politics' on a single issue, nor are we here as an exercise in vanity - for the flyovers, the gun salutes and the disproportionate security.

The DA is a party of government.

We aim to govern to improve the lives of the people of South Africa. We aim to govern to provide South Africans with the opportunities they deserve, and to make our nation a fairer place to live.

We are in politics to win - so that we can benefit the many, not the well-connected few.

We eat, sleep, dream and live every moment thinking about how to grow this economy and create the jobs our country needs.

That is the difference between the DA and the ANC.

We are the government of opportunity, of social justice, of growth.

You are the government of a broken economy, a failed legacy and 1.6 million more unemployed people than when you started.

Issued by the DA, February 17 2015

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