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Leadership Discussion
ON THE WAY
TO CREATING A NEW NORMAL W
ith economy said to be in recession, rating agencies branding it ‘junk’ and GDP figures inducing migraine when compared to 25 years ago, we need to convince ourselves that the country isn’t going to the dogs and as a people we are not reduced to junk. Are our identified economic growth-acceleration sectors performing?
Scientists, accountants, economists and politicians are known to enjoy speaking in formulae, codes and tongues that ordinary people can’t readily decipher. Can we set jargon aside and find each other on where to go post Covid-19?
PEOPLE DYNAMICS | March - April 2020
Custom vs Imported Strategies
The jumping onto the different global bandwagons, including edging out primary production industries in favour of the “progressive” economies have seen us artificially borrowing foreign problems and making them ours. No one would dispute that global waves such as the information age, the service, knowledge and now digital economy are innovations to serve countries that are under-populated, labourconstrained and/or land-strapped. These are things South Africa doesn’t suffer from. Structural Unemployment
The problem with us as South Africans is that we can have the sophistication of a fourth world (science/tech-wise), aspirations of a third world and complexes of a first world. We have a high population of uneducated people. Yes, uneducated in the sense that the education is nil-for-purpose considering our resources and what the economy really needs. We send all our students into management-this and management-the-other, killing our technical skill capacity that would enable us to exploit our natural resources and maintain decent lifestyles for all through meaningful work and self-sustainability.
