Cassius Maseti, 37, is dirty, tired and hungry and embodies post-apartheid South Africa's failure to effectively tackle unemployment, which unofficial figures say could be as high as 40 percent.
Maseti, dressed in a dirty T-shirt and torn trousers, is despondent as he recounts his travails in a park outside South Africa's parliament in Cape Town.
PHOTO: AFP
"I have tried and tried, but all I was able to get was short work as a laborer. If you do not have a matric [matriculation] certificate or a university degree, then no one will employ you," he says.
Joblessness has become a hurdle for the African National Congress (ANC) government, in power since the first multiracial elections were held in April, 1994.
According to the latest government figures, about 5.3 million people, or 31.2 percent of economically active citizens in South Africa -- most of them black -- do not hold jobs.
Unofficial figures suggest it could be as high as 40 percent.
A recent survey by state broadcaster SABC found that 90 percent of 3,500 respondents interviewed were highly concerned about unemployment.
Opposition parties say the ruling party's failure to create jobs has caused an unusually high crime rate.
The South African Police Service annual report said that 47.4 murders were committed per 100,000 people between April, 2002 and March, 2003, or a total of 21,230.
The ANC has fended off criticism, saying it inherited an unbalanced, racially-skewed economy when it took charge in 1994 and that much had been done to reduce poverty and create jobs.
"The economy in 1994 was in an advanced state of decline," Trade and Industry Minister Alec Erwin, a member of the ANC, told journalists recently.
"In terms of human development, the weakness in the economy resulted in declining living standards, high levels of racial inequality as well as high levels of poverty," he said.
When the ANC came to power under then president Nelson Mandela in 1994, it began to plough funds into areas that were neglected by the apartheid government and to uplift the lot of blacks and the so-called "coloureds" (mixed race) who faced decades of oppression and were economically marginalized.
According to figures in South Africa's 2004 budget, 1.6 million houses and 700 new clinics have been built since 1994, a further nine million people have access to water, four million homes have electricity and school pupil numbers have grown by 1.5 million to 12 million.
The government also introduced empowerment initiatives such as the Mining Charter, which calls for 26 percent of mines to be black-owned in 10 years, and the Financial Services Charter, which wants a quarter of the sector black-owned by 2010, to rectify the anomalies.
Ben Smit, a professor of economics at the University of Stellenbosch, outside of Cape Town, said the most distinguishing characteristic of the past 10 years had been the government's ability to maintain a stable economy, while coping with enormous social challenges.
"The government's fiscal policy, which has among others brought inflation down and stabilized the economy has been one of the outstanding features of the past 10 years," Smit said.
Consumer inflation has averaged at 7.3 percent since 1993, compared to 14.3 percent the previous decade.
The problem for the government, said Smit, has been its inability to speed up economic growth, which has averaged 2.8 percent since 1994 and was just 1.9 percent in 2003.
"South Africa needs to speed up its growth rate to around five percent to be able to provide jobs for the unemployed," he said.
The government has pledged US$15 billion to infrastructure development in the next 10 years as a way of creating more employment.
Last year President Thabo Mbeki introduced the Expanded Public Works Programme, a project that aims to improve South Africa's infrastructure while creating one million jobs within five years.
Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said in his 2004 budget speech earlier in February that speeding up economic growth was one of the government's top priorities.
"We recognize that the pace of economic growth has to be accelerated," he said.
"Investment in industry and infrastructure and an expansion of job opportunities are critical challenges for the decade ahead."
A ship that appears to be taking on the identity of a scrapped gas carrier exited the Strait of Hormuz on Friday, showing how strategies to get through the waterway are evolving as the Middle East war progresses. The vessel identifying as liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier Jamal left the Strait on Friday morning, ship-tracking data show. However, the same tanker was also recorded as having beached at an Indian demolition yard in October last year, where it is being broken up, according to market participants and port agent’s reports. The ship claiming to be Jamal is likely a zombie vessel that
Japan is to downgrade its description of ties with China from “one of its most important” in an annual diplomatic report, according to a draft reviewed by Reuters, as relations with Beijing worsen. This year’s Diplomatic Bluebook, which Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s government is expected to approve next month, would instead describe China as an important neighbor and the relationship as “strategic” and “mutually beneficial.” The draft cites a series of confrontations with Beijing over the past year, including export controls on rare earths, radar lock-ons targeting Japanese military aircraft and increased pressure around Taiwan. The shift in tone underscores a deterioration
LAW CONSTRAINTS: The US has been pressing allies to send warships to open the Strait, but Tokyo’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution Japan could consider deploying its military for minesweeping in the Strait of Hormuz if a ceasefire is reached in the war on Iran, Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Toshimitsu Motegi said yesterday. “If there were to be a complete ceasefire, hypothetically speaking, then things like minesweeping could come up,” Motegi said. “This is purely hypothetical, but if a ceasefire were established and naval mines were creating an obstacle, then I think that would be something to consider.” Japan’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution, but 2015 security legislation allows Tokyo to use its Self-Defense Forces overseas if an attack,
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) yesterday faced a regional election battle in Rhineland-Palatinate, now held by the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD). Merz’s CDU has enjoyed a narrow poll lead over the SPD — their coalition partners at the national level — who have ruled the mid-sized state for 35 years. Polling third is the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which spells a greater threat to the two centrist parties in several state elections in September in the country’s ex-communist east. The picturesque state of Rhineland-Palatinate, bordering France, Belgium and Luxembourg and with a population of about 4 million,
RSS