1.Yes, concrete actions are being undertaken.
South Africa needs to achieve higher levels of inclusive growth that raises employment, reduces inequality and eliminates poverty. Higher growth is also critical to help maintain South Africa’s investment grade rating.
The National Development Plan is the framework followed by all government departments to address structural constraints in the economy and achieve higher growth. The 2016 Budget Review outlines actions taken to promote private investment, address infrastructure bottlenecks, labour relations, improving policy certainty and coordination and on improving the ease of doing business (pg 25 – 27).
To further support efforts and implementation to foster higher economic growth, the president tasked the Ministry of Finance and Mr Jabu Mabuza to lead coordination with business, government and labour. Work from various work streams has focused on:
2. Monitoring progress is critical to ensure we are on the right path. Demonstrating concrete progress on our stated commitments to reform state owned companies, to catalyse growth and to maintain sound public finances is critical not only for ratings agencies, but for confidence in South Africa more broadly.
Government’s progress in implementing the NDP is monitored through the medium-term strategic framework (MTSF), which provides detailed reporting on individual programmes, including targets, timelines, and indicators to measure performance and the Minister/s responsible for each outcome. The process is managed and monitored by the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation.