THE ANC wants unemployment, particularly among the youth, to be declared a national crisis but has no idea how this should translate into anything tangible.
This is how it came out during the policy conference from the discussions around the economic transformation commission presented by Human Settlement Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi.
In briefing the media on the updates of policy discussions, Kubayi could not spell out how this would work if adopted as policy.
She said the nitty gritties of how this would be implemented would rest with the government.
Kubayi said this was a proposal that was tabled during the discussions in the commission, which she revealed attracted a lot of delegates given the state of the economy and rising costs.
The issues of unemployment and energy crisis also came up during the national policy conference that started on Friday, 29 July, at Nasrec in Joburg.
In a half-hearted attempt to explain this proposal and how declaring it a national crisis would unlock the system to benefit the intended people, Kubayi said the government would have to adopt a similar approach to the one adopted during the Covid-19 pandemic.
She said delegates felt that the government needed to respond to the record high unemployment.
“The proposal is that what we have done with Covid interventions because it is under the national disaster could stop and we focus on other interventions,” was all she could say.
It was not immediately clear if this was in response to the Congress of South African Trade Unions’ calls for a basic income grant or this would be an entirely different measure by the government.
But Kubayi did mention this was just a policy discussion and was yet to be debated in the policy plenary, which will sit today, 31 July, which is also the final day of the conference.
The contentious step aside rule is also set to be discussed after it was referred to commissions on the opening day of the conference instead of being included in the programme after being pushed by powerful KZN province, which wants it scrapped while Limpopo wants it reviewed.
This was seen as a defeat for the Radical Economic Transformation (RET) faction most of whose numbers have been affected by the rule.
President Cyril Ramaphosa is set to close the conference.
