What South Africa needs to get out of the pit of the current economic recession is action and not just ideas," dr Pieter Groenewald, FF Plus leader said on Wednesday during a parliamentary debate on ideas for economic revival after the recession.
"One of the main causes of the country's economic stagnation is the ANC's plans for expropriation without compensation. The ANC would, therefore, do well to pay serious attention to the submissions made to the Constitutional Review Committee in this regard," Groenewald said.
He referred to fears by Nedbank's chief executive officer, Mike Brown, that, among other things, prospective investors are becoming more and more concerned about the economic situation in South Africa.
Previously, during talks with investors roughly 20 minutes of every hour were spent talking about what is happening in the country, 10 minutes on the banking industry and 30 minutes on the bank itself. In the last two months, 40 minutes of every hour are spent on discussing what is happening in the country. Only five minutes are spent talking about the banking industry and 15 minutes on the matters of the bank.
Nicky Weimar, senior economist at Nedbank says, among other things, that the government talks a lot about what expropriation without compensation will not entail, for instance, that there will not be land grabs and that food security will not be jeopardised.
What the government is, however, not saying is how it will ensure that land expropriation does not escalate to a level where it is completely out of control, according to Weimar.
"Expropriation without compensation is the biggest problem and it is paralysing the economy. As long as the government keeps denying that it is the root cause of the economic decline, the decline will continue and get even worse.
"The ANC government seems inextricably bound to its ideology. It must stop thinking that its only responsibility in ruling is towards the ANC. Tax payers' money does not belong to the government, it belongs to the tax payers and the citizens of South Africa and it must, therefore, be spent appropriately," Groenewald said.
