Current Edition >> Archives Section >> Leading Stories >> 16 February 2006
The new buzzword in the South African economy is the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative of South Africa (Asgisa), first revealed in the President's State of the Nation Address (SONA) 2006. In a speech at the Foreign Offices Operations Conference, Johannesburg, on 6 February 2006, Deputy-president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka shed more light on Asgisa, indicating inter alia that Asgisa is to half unemployment and poverty by 2014 and advance average economic growth of at least 6% of GDP by 2014. As such she said that in striving for sustainable and shared growth, the government admits that notwithstanding good macro-economic balance, unemployment and poverty is still too high.
Mlambu-Ngcuka further stated : “Asgisa is not a new economic policy. It is mostly micro economic reforms within a GEAR Macro economic framework. It is about the efficiency of the state, better conditions for business, closing the skills gap in short and long term, linking the 1st and 2nd economy, clearing up on governance and red tape, corruption etc, that impacts on delivering at all levels of government and critical within specific departments like DTI, DME, HA, DLA . We are addressing a phenomena of growth that is driven by commodity prices to consumer spending both variables and are therefore risky.”
The key components of Asgisa are Infrastructure (R320 billion for a variety of major capital projects), human resources (skills development drive and prioritizing sectors such as tourism, BPO, SMME's, imports & exports, skills development, security, etc.) and fighting corruption. It also targets 100 000 new SMME's per annum, unemployed graduates and the expanded public works programme. As such it also boils down to provincial level, with detail not spelt out by the Deputy-president, but it is presumed that individual provincial growth strategies are to be synchronized with Asgisa.
Be it as it may, it would undoubtedly pay Free Staters to acquaint themselves firsthand as to how the province and citizens at grassroots level stand to benefit from Asgisa. This goes especially for aspects such as the roll-out of the bio-fuels industry in SA and how it pertains to the Free State.
More info on Asgisa from http://www.dfa.gov.za/docs/speeches/2006/mngcuk0206.htm.
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