South Africa must fix its own problems to grow the economy - Treasury's Lungisa Fuzile

A lot of South Africa’s problems in the economy has its root within the borders of the country and not the global economy‚ director-general in the National Treasury Lungisa Fuzile says.

“It is very easy for us to explain a lot of our challenges external to ourselves. As some would say‚ it is very easy to externalize a lot of what is happening here and say we are where we are because the world is not doing well. Our government is very alive to the fact that several of the factors that have us where we are‚ are domestic in nature and origin. We need to work hard to find solutions to these and restore investor confidence and to preserve our investment grade rating‚ as we have been doing recently‚” Fuzile said.

He was speaking at the Metals and Engineering Indaba in Sandton where various players in the sector gathered to find new solutions which could stimulate growth and create much-needed jobs.

Fuzile said government had established a multi-departmental steel task team to advise it on measures that could be taken to ensure that jobs are created and the metals and engineering sector begins to grow again.

He urged all sectors of the economy to invest in the country as the global economy was going through its toughest times.

This included labour “which controls a pool of funds through pensions and provident funds‚” Fuzile said.

He commended work which had been done to address the issue of energy in the economy.

“This is one area where we have made a lot of headway. I like it because it has entailed cooperation between the private sector and the public sector‚ resulting in investment of R200-million in renewable energy.

“...At the same time we have to continue to build infrastructure and maintain the existing infrastructure so that we can drive down the cost of doing business in South Africa and thus enhance our competitiveness‚” concluded Fuzile.