Let me vent! Attempting to figure out where @PresidencyZA is, as far as the implementation of key economic decisions/actions is concerned, or to work out its overall economic policy thrust is an utter nightmare and an anti-climax

The Presidency’s website is littered with useful but fragmented reports ranging from snapshots on the Presidential Employment Stimulus; Expropriation Bill 2020; to Child Law Order. There is no thematic sorting or categorisation by sectoral areas or any other useful categories.

As for logical clarity, the reports have no cohesive and coherent summation on the evolution of economic policy itself. There is no delineation of what is being discussed to any of the observed successes or failures in relation to any of recent key policies (NDP; NGP; etc).

So, what you have is serious policy discussions appearing to rely on self-evident truths instead of systematic analysis, again without critical assessment of lessons gleaner from prior policies (lapsed or abandoned).

Then where the reports are of any use, vital information is buried deep in wordy and poetic language - as if to fill the void, so much so that one misses altogether the essence of what is being said any why is it important!!

Take for example the correct but incomplete idea from “Building a New Economy” which seeks to “reduce the decline of local manufacturing sector through exports”. It leaves one wondering: ‘exporting what and to where?’. It is not mentioned, even just as an way example.

Almost all key reports/synopsis on the website reference ‘infrastructure’ as being key. This is wonderful but a little digging in reveals a worrisome philosophy which sees infrastructure primarily an as enabler for job creation instead of economic competitiveness.

The predictable outcome of such a philosophy is that, when all is said and done, South Africa will have - by design, a very temporary job spurt that cannot be sustained beyond the infrastructure build period. Have we not seen this movie before?

Finally, the issue of the fragmentation and somewhat underwhelming thrust appears to be a question of Strategy being pursued: the search for quick but evidently ephemeral results.

As Hirschman once argued, the problem is not a “lack of one or even of several needed factors or elements (capital, education, etc.) that must be combined with other elements to produce economic development, but with the deficiency in the combining process itself.”

Wither South Africa?