Noted political economist Frans Cronje says job creation in South Africa has fallen to its lowest level under President Cyril Ramaphosa, performing significantly worse than during the administrations of Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma.
Speaking during the State of the Nation event, Cronje presented a critical assessment of Ramaphosa's economic record, focusing on falling investment levels and weak employment growth.
Cronje divided the ANC regime into two distinct periods: the first 15 years under Mandela and Mbeki, which he described as a phase of strong economic expansion and service delivery, and the later period under Zuma and Ramaphosa, which he described as an era of stagnation.
According to Cronje, South Africa's fixed investment rate as a share of GDP was about 15 percent before 1994, but it increased significantly during the early democratic years with economic growth and expanding access to services.
He said the number of households without electricity declined from about 49 percent in 1994 to less than 20 percent by the end of Mbeki's presidency, while employment doubled from about 8 million people to about 15 million by 2008.
Cronje argued that the early ANC administration successfully improved the living standards of millions of South Africans and rejected the idea that the country experienced “jobless growth” during that period.
“Mandela and Mbeki oversaw the creation of about 500,000 net new jobs per year,” he said.
He said the pace of job creation slowed significantly under Zuma and peaked at around 250,000 jobs annually before worsening under Ramaphosa, where he claimed employment growth struggled to exceed 100,000 new jobs per year.
Cronje attributed the weak performance to low levels of fixed investment and argued that South Africa's investment rate remained well below the average of comparable emerging markets.
“Despite the national unity government, we are a 1% growth economy with an investment rate half that of our emerging market competitors,” he said.
He also criticized efforts to market South Africa as an investment destination through conferences and public relations campaigns and said that the underlying investment figures had failed to improve meaningfully.
Cronje said, “At the time of CR17, my colleagues and I were very skeptical that he was a reformer because it just didn't match the history.”
He argued that the data now supports that suspicion, claiming that Ramaphosa has not succeeded in driving the reforms needed to stimulate sustained economic growth and large-scale job creation.