the south african policies NDP vs RET.docx

2018

This paper describes some of the economic reforms proposed by the NDP, and assesses them through a somewhat critical lens. To achieve progress in our country, the NDP focusses on employment growth, increasing the income share of the poor and lowering their costs of living, assisting previously economically disadvantaged people, growing the export market, growing investment and regulating monopolistic markets effectively.

The formulation of grand economic policy strategies to promote growth, job creation, and industrial development has been a regular feature in South Africa’s democratic transformation. The National Development Plan (NDP) is the latest in a line of such strategies dating back to the Reconstruction and Development Programme in 1994. While the creation of these strategies at various points in the country’s transition has been indicative of the state’s commitment to economic progress, implementing this commitment has been severely tested by the locus of authority, cohesion among and capacity of state institutions. In this paper, we critically examine the institutional arrangements behind the implementation of grand economic policy strategies in South Africa, observe how these produced variable implementation effectiveness across these initiatives, and consider the lessons for the implementation of the NDP. We will specifically focus on how ‘co-ordination’ was configured through the institutional arrangements, and look at how this shaped implementation.

2017

When the African National Congress (ANC) became the democratic government of South Africa in 1994, it faced the challenge of transforming the economy. How this was to be done, however, revolved around two divergent views of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) which forms the underlying ideology or glue that binds together the Tripartite Alliance comprising the ANC, the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), the largest workers’ union in the country. Transformation could be achieved either radically through measures such as nationalisation where political control would be transposed into economic power, or via a more liberal route involving the promotion of macro-economic development and the growth of company earnings. This article investigates how the ANC government has sought to bring about the much-needed transformation by providing summary analyses of the following macro-economic policies: the Reconstruction and Developm...

Monthly Review, 2018

The South African political class appears to have finally recognized the depth of the crisis into which the country's capitalist system has sunk. Can the government's new Radical Economic Transformation program begin to address the profound inequalities that remain at the heart of South African society?

Ids Bull Inst Develop Stud, 1994

2011

At a time when most countries in the world adopted the principles of the Washington consensus with regard to government and the principles of New Public Management with regard to its governance, developments in South Africa from the early 1990 onward seemingly went the other way. Departing from an apartheid-system before 1994 the new democratic state of South Africa inherited a regime based on neo-liberal principles with regard to socio-economic development with consequently a minimalist role of the state in terms of its intervention in the economic arena. Where everywhere in the world government was seen as the problem, the ANC government clearly had other views regarding its role in socio-economic development. The government enacted and promulgated various people-centered policies and strategic programs, and the ANC adopted the principles of the developmental state with the belief that state economic intervention could enhance and strengthen the government or state capacity to dea...

This paper will critically argue that South Africa left out the redistributive objectives of the Reconstruction and Development Programmes (hereafter RDP) and were substituted with neoliberal objectives through introduction of the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (hereafter GEAR) policy. In engaging with this argument this essay will first explain what neoliberalism is and provide a background of RDP drawing back from Freedom Charter, African National Congress (hereafter ANC) 1994"s manifesto. Furthermore, critically analyse RDP objectives and its influences and argue that RDP did incorporate some neo-liberal thinking which GEAR took it further. Moreover, elaborate on challenges that were faced by RDP such as budgets constraints and discuss criticism of RDP such as institutional challenges to name the few.

Ten Year Review of the National Development Plan South Africa, 2023

The National Planning Commission (NPC), according to the Revised Green Paper: National Planning Commission, General Notice 101 of 2010, is an independent think-tank responsible for advising the President and Cabinet on long-term development planning. In addition, the NPC, which is appointed by the President, is expected to assist with rallying the nation around the National Development Plan (NDP): Vision 2030. This review interrogates the factors that affected the implementation of the NDP since its adoption, including consideration of domestic and international crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic, the civil unrest in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal in July 2021, the RussiaUkraine war, the energy crisis, and the severe flooding and landslides in KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape in April 2022. In particular, the review assesses the progress made with the key NDP targets of eliminating poverty and reducing inequality and unemployment. The analysis evaluates the extent to which planning has been institutionalised and the reform of the country’s planning system across all spheres of government following the adoption of the NDP.