President Cyril Ramaphosa could make a decisive contribution to curbing rising unemployment in South Africa by vetoing the Employment Equity Amendment Bill (EEB), according to the Institute of Race Relations (IRR).
In a statement, the IRR warned that ‘South Africans face the bad news of a record high unemployment rate and must know that things could get even worse’.
The statement followed the news that the number of unemployed people increased by 278 000 to 7.9 million in the last quarter of 2021. Youth aged 15 to 24 and 25 to 34 recorded the highest unemployment rates of 66.5% and 43.5%, respectively.
Promulgation of the EEB, the IRR predicted, ‘will push the country’s unemployment rate on the expanded definition through the 50% mark by disqualifying businesses on the basis of race from selling more value for less’.
The IRR statement said: ‘Dr Anthea Jeffery, Head of Policy Research at the IRR, has highlighted “the ten-year lockdown” of the economy, referring to government policies that frustrated work-seekers either directly or indirectly and put the country in a position where it could not handle the Covid-19 pandemic dislocations, which were exacerbated by maladministration.
‘A new path is needed for recovery, one which Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana initiated by exempting Transnet and Eskom from race-based tests on new tenders and which President Ramaphosa could elevate to national scale by vetoing the EEB.’
Said IRR Head of Campaigns Gabriel Crouse: ‘South Africa needs to get all hands on deck, but Radical Economic Transformation ideologues would rather count melanin cells while ripping at the Constitution than get serious about getting to work.’
The IRR said that vetoing the EEB ‘will not just stop the job-shedding spiral, it will also stimulate investment, which is the route to building new jobs’.
Members of the public are encouraged to sign the IRR’s petition to veto the EEB here.
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