DA requests a snap debate on the recession and mass unemployment in SA
7 June 2017
The Minister of Finance, Malusi Gigaba's, response to the shock news that the economy had entered into a recession was pathetic and suggests government has no concrete plan to pull the economy out of recession and deal with mass unemployment in South Africa.
We are now in deep economic trouble with the economy slipping into recession after GDP in the first quarter of 2017 contracted by -0.7%, following a contraction of -0.3% in the fourth quarter of 2016, and a staggering 9.3 million people now do not have jobs, or have given up looking for jobs, in South Africa.
What is so disturbing is the fact that the recession is, to a large extent self-inflicted by, to quote Deputy-President Cyril Ramaphosa, “a government that is at war with itself”, which has railroaded any chance of implementing the structural reforms necessary to boost economic growth and create jobs in South Africa.