Well, rating agencies are external bodies that would assess the country and give their opinion on their findings. Unfortunately, those who want invest their money in this country will have to take those opinions very serious. So, you can ignore the advice and the opinion of rating agencies at your own peril. But it's important to note them and respond accordingly.
For instance, rating agencies spoke about our state-owned enterprises and it's a fact that our state-owned enterprises are not in a very stable condition. So, we must respond to that in order to keep track and make them better. Also, they have complained about the rising government debt which is the money that we have borrowed.
Therefore, we must respond to that. The way to do that is that we must cut our coat according to our size, that means that we must slim down and make sure that we reprioritise, curb wastages and look at all areas where we think we can bring down expenditure. In so doing, we would be responding to that problem. But again, for us to ensure that our economy is put on the right path, there are certain fundamental things that we must do.
It's important to continue with our skills programme and our education programmes to ensure that we skill more and more of our people, so that they can be absorbed in the economy. There's a correlation that has been found that where there's poverty, where poverty is high, unemployment is high and educational outcomes are low.