LETTER: Western Cape’s jobs strategy pays off

According to the latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey the Western Cape has the lowest expanded unemployment rate in the country, at 25.3%. This rate is clearly still far too high, but it does offer some insight into the role the business regulatory environment plays in job creation.

The Western Cape government has for years held the position that our businesses need government to create the environment where they can thrive, grow and create jobs.

The gap in unemployment between the Western Cape and the rest of the provinces, all under ANC control, is staggering. The worst performing province is North West, with an expanded unemployment rate of 53.5%, more than double the Western Cape figure. Even the next best province, Gauteng, is 14 percentage points worse off the Western Cape.

When you look at the fundamental differences in DA and ANC economic policy it is clear — essentially it is centralisation versus enablement. The ANC wants to tell our businesses how to run, while the DA is focused on growing the overall economy to lift more of people out of poverty. Less government control over the economy, meaning less bureaucracy and less red tape that strangles entrepreneurship, is at the core of the Western Cape’s success.

It was after all the first province in the country to roll out a dedicated red tape reduction unit, which assists businesses in navigating red tape, as well as providing support for the simplification of municipal and provincial economic regulations.

These core tenets remain intact in the Western Cape government’s Growth for Jobs strategy, a blueprint that will inform the provincial government’s focus over the next 12 years. Lofty goals are what we need, and this policy aims to get the provincial economy purring along at 4%-6% growth, with a R1-trillion GDP by 2035. This is where we need to go, and the fact that we can show how we plan to get there is an enormous boost to investor and consumer confidence.

The economy can be fickle, and outside shocks will always have an effect on provincial economic performance, but the Western Cape has identified the core fundamentals that can create a robust and resilient economy, one people want to invest in because they see a business-friendly environment that wants them to succeed.

We are already well on our way to becoming the business hub of Africa, and with enabling government now codified we are ready see the economy blast off into a new stratosphere.

Robert Moore 
DA Western Cape media & research officer

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