President Zuma should join me for a debate on our economy

I will today be writing to President Zuma, calling for a public debate between him and myself on the state of our economy. 

All South Africans are presently deeply concerned about the state of our country, and particularly our economy. The last few months will be remembered as one of the most trying times in our democratic history and yet President Zuma has not offered the leadership that South Africans expect from a President. While the Marikana massacre stands out as the most tragic example of the current crisis, there are many others: 

• We have recently experienced a number of violent strikes, in which many people have lost their lives.
• The economy continues to lose billions every day as a result of illegal strikes.
• South Africa's credit rating has been downgraded by both Standard and Poor's and Moody's in the last month.
• The deficit in our current account, a measure of foreign investment flows, is now at an unprecedented level as foreign investors have shown that they too are feeling uneasy.
• The Rand has suffered a precipitous devaluation over a short period of time, with serious consequences for import prices, and especially food prices.
• And perhaps most critically, many thousands more jobs are being shed - adding to the millions of South Africans who are already unemployed.

The Democratic Alliance has presented an alternative plan for building an inclusive economy, our Growth and Jobs Plan. We have put that plan to the country over the last few months, and we believe that if we had the opportunity to implement it in government, our economy would grow and create jobs and shared prosperity in a climate of policy certainty. 

But the President has not done the same. For the large part, he is completely silent on economy policy. He hardly ever speaks on the matter, and we have heard no serious positioning statement from him or his government on the current state of our economy. What is his plan to prevent further downgrades and ensure future upgrades to our credit rating? What is his position on the illegal strikes which have killed innocent people and threaten our entire mining industry? What does he plan to do about our soaring current account deficit? 

Does he have a plan at all? Or is he merely paying shallow lip service to the National Development Plan without any intention of implementing it. We cannot continue to muddle through a slow economic decline; with more people becoming unemployed and poor people becoming steadily poorer. We need a thorough, open, and vigorous debate about how to change this economy so that it works better and includes everyone. 

I propose such a debate, between President Zuma and myself, moderated by a mutually agreeable facilitator and for it to be held in public. I look forward to his urgent response. 

Statement issued by DA leader, Helen Zille, October 15 2012

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