JOHANNESBURG, Oct 17 (Reuters) – Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene will have his work cut out at next week’s budget to try and reassure disillusioned South Africans that the government still has gas in its tank to pull the economy out of the doldrums.
Twenty years after Nelson Mandela swept the African National Congress to power, pledging to unleash the economy and ensure universal access to quality education, jobs and houses, very little of the optimism that engulfed the country then remains.
For South Africans like Mulalo Ramavu, a self-employed handyman who barely scratches out a living for his family of four in Johannesburg’s poverty-stricken Alexandra township, confidence that the ANC can reduce social inequality and significantly improve living standards for blacks has long gone. The future looks even bleaker for his young sons.
“This is not the South Africa I expected after apartheid,” said 40-year-old Ramavu, reflecting on his long-abandoned dreams of becoming an engineer and buying a house in the suburbs, the preserve of whites during apartheid rule.
“After a promising start, the ANC now seems to be taking us backwards, and I fear for the future. I don’t see how Nene can convince me otherwise.”
Even the ruling party’s harshest critics concede it has done a lot to better the lives of black South Africans since 1994, building over 3 million houses, improving access to water and power and providing social grants to over 15 million people.
But many are growing impatient with the government’s failure to get the economy moving after a 2009 recession.
After averaging 5 percent previously, annual economic growth has struggled to reach 2 percent in the last five years.
In February, then Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan predicted growth of 2.7 percent for 2014, but Nene has admitted that now looks unattainable after months of debilitating strikes that have hit efforts to reduce 25 percent unemployment.
Official data shows nearly 3 million 18 to 24-year-olds cannot find jobs, translating to a youth unemployment rate of above 60 percent.
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