Cape Town - For the second time in as many months ANC parliamentarians have pooh-poohed serious warnings about the country’s current economic direction.
On Tuesday ANC MPs remonstrated with one of South Africa’s top economists for his “exaggerated” figures on job creation, social grants and the future “wealthy” public service.
The economist, Mike Schussler of Economists.co.za, made these assertions in a submission on the national budget to a joint sitting of the parliamentary finance committees.
He sketched a sombre picture of the economy’s ability to meet government’s ambitious job-creation targets and warned about high wage increases in the public service and the little protection afforded small and medium-sized (SME) enterprises.
But these warnings were scorned by the ANC.
Last year ANC MPs also angrily repudiated warnings by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that reform was needed in the country’s wage-negotiation structures if the country was to achieve 6% or 7% growth (to create jobs) in the short term.
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