Will this be the year when we finally acknowledge that youth unemployment is on course to devastate SA?
Most of our young black adults aren’t networked as there are so few opportunities and so many job seekers. Over half of today’s young black South African adults are poor and unemployed. No solutions are being developed for them or their younger siblings.
Last May’s election sparked hopes because it denied the ANC a majority, resulting instead in a government of national unity. Yet this coalition-styled government hasn’t produced a potent plan to address our cost of capital being prohibitively expensive while our workforce productivity remains dreadful. Meanwhile, our national debt compounds.
Eventually lenders will scoff. Pessimistic scenarios could include postponing credit events through proscribing pension assets or monetary accommodation. The ANC’s recent plaything is its expropriation without compensation law.
ANC leaders have stared into the abyss and decided that they dare not take on the patronage system their party spawned. The ANC seems powerless to course correct, and none of our other political or business elites have ideas to create millions of jobs. Perhaps political paths favour rising authoritarianism.
Deflect criticism
For now, oddly enough, SA has arrived at the point where the best we can hope for is a US president hostile to diversity, equity and inclusion, and therefore ultra hostile to the ANC’s exploitation of BEE. The ANC uses BEE to deflect criticism of its patronage system, which fuels youth unemployment, even though less than five percent of school leavers are white.
It is not that the current US president is particularly interested in this country. But SA’s hosting of the G20 after having aligned with anti-Western nations means Donald Trump cannot ignore us.
Trump will now begin to negotiate the end of fighting in Ukraine with President Putin. European leaders along with Ukrainian President Zelensky will merely be consulted. If, as seems quite possible, Trump uses the many cards he holds, particularly sanctions, to re-establish Europe’s access to cheap Russian energy, then the current US president can stagecraft Russia’s being re-accepted internationally − not unlike how another US president invited West Germany and Japan to integrate with peace-seeking nations after the Second World War.
Russia’s reintegrating into the global community is likely to be terrible for the ANC. The party expressed its disdain for the West by aligning with the anti-West axis of Russia, China, Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah. All are now far weaker than they were when Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago. SA and the ANC are also weaker.
Indefinitely postponed
China is by far the most potent anti-Western actor on the global stage but it is also fair to say that China’s hopes for re-inventing the global order to suit its preferences have been indefinitely postponed. China’s over-investment in real estate, coupled with a shrinking workforce and rapid ageing, has gone very badly − as have the trajectories of China’s anti-Western allies.
ANC policies have ravaged our economy and the party’s foreign relations choices have been similarly disastrous. It can expect little ongoing support from its preferred geopolitical alignment partners.
If the ANC’s leaders can’t pivot their policies, they should expect this new US administration to spotlight the resulting harms during the year-long G20.
The greatest long-term harms begin with youth unemployment and, interestingly, both the US and SA are motivated to reduce it.
[Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jimcintosh/489329412]
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
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