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Speaker 1: News twenty four held It's on the record Summitt twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty six, which looked at jobs, how many are needed,

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Speaker 1: how best to get them into our ecosystem. Adria Anderson,

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Speaker 1: editor in chief of News twenty four, joins us now

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Speaker 1: plenty of time to reflect on what was said, what

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Speaker 1: was heard, what the consensus was, where the disagreements were Arian,

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Speaker 1: Good afternoon, What for you was the most important consensus

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Speaker 1: element of those days of discussion.

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Speaker 2: Afternoon, John, Look, I think some of the points that

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Speaker 2: were repeated over and over again, maybe two ones I

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Speaker 2: can highlight. The first is that the economy should come

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Speaker 2: first and politics second, which I don't think is the

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Speaker 2: case in South Africa at the moment. And secondly, that

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Speaker 2: we actually know what to do to create jobs. It's

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Speaker 2: not just major mystery. We know what is needed. We

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Speaker 2: need an economy that grows. We need in investment in

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Speaker 2: the country from domestic business investors and business people as

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Speaker 2: well as foreign direct investment, and that will that will

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Speaker 2: create a climate in which jobs are created. So I

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Speaker 2: think you know somehow, with with without trying to simplifyze things,

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Speaker 2: it became very obvious again that the basics of economic

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Speaker 2: principles still hold also for South Africa, and that we've

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Speaker 2: been meddling a lot with politics and ideology over the

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Speaker 2: past fifteen years, which which caused this very very low

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Speaker 2: growth rate we are at the moment and job stagnation.

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Speaker 1: Was there any realistic optimism that government is prepared to

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Speaker 1: make a meaningful ideological change. Of course, yes, there is

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Speaker 1: cooperation with the private sector and it has worked with

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Speaker 1: the restoration of liable power, and yes it is being

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Speaker 1: talked about in infrastructure, rail and harbor infrastructure. We haven't

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Speaker 1: had time to assess the container port terminal because that

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Speaker 1: court action has so recently concluded that you know, we've

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Speaker 1: got no evidence. I read a lot of cynicism about

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Speaker 1: the opening up of some rail lines to private operators

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Speaker 1: because the conditionality of them seems to favor trans net

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Speaker 1: to the exclusion of any kind of profit. And if

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Speaker 1: private sector is not going to make profit, they're not

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Speaker 1: going to invest, and that means they're not going to

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Speaker 1: create jobs. So were there people close enough to government saying,

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Speaker 1: you know what, I think change is on the way.

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Speaker 2: So let me let me start listing some of the

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Speaker 2: positives that we mentioned. As you correctly point out, port

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Speaker 2: and transport and rail, and I mean this is a

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Speaker 2: direct result of the involvement of business and big business

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Speaker 2: working with President Roma Pausa's offers quite directly and intimately

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Speaker 2: to find solutions for these problems. In fact, the first

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Speaker 2: big project they worked on was load shedding. That's of

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Speaker 2: course the biggest triumph of this administration. For various reasons

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Speaker 2: one can debate, but it is a matter of fact

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Speaker 2: that light shedding is now pretty much a thing of

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Speaker 2: the past, which which isn't a small victory, and then

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Speaker 2: can put in rail and the next big projects at

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Speaker 2: the likes of Neil Ferneman and Jannie Durant and and

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Speaker 2: other business people main Kingston will be involved in is

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Speaker 2: is crime and justice, which I'll talk a bit in

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Speaker 2: a while because I think that's quite important how that

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Speaker 2: links to unemployment and also water infrastructure. We heard that

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Speaker 2: the at the conference, people like Already Dix was on

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Speaker 2: the panel, the head of operations within LELO. We heard

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Speaker 2: that government is quite open for private sector involvement in

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Speaker 2: water as well, so that is positive. I think. On

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Speaker 2: the other side, what is very clear is that much

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Speaker 2: more is needed. Bruce. We heard from people like David McWilliams,

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Speaker 2: the Irish economist, on how Ireland turned around eas economy

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Speaker 2: from the eighties into the nineties with the Tiger moment

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Speaker 2: and just made some big changes, for example, how foreign

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Speaker 2: capital was attracted to that country. We heard from a

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Speaker 2: Chinese expent of the Cajin about how China made some

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Speaker 2: big changes in terms of local government involvement in the

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Speaker 2: economy and how they completely decentralized the economy and to

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Speaker 2: make it possible for entrepreneurs to enter the market. And

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Speaker 2: then you hear her speakers who we kind of painstakingly,

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Speaker 2: you know, outlined how difficult it's still e is to

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Speaker 2: begin a business in South Africa, to staught a business.

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Speaker 2: So those kind of things just simply has to change.

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Speaker 2: Those solutions are so obvious you don't have to describe it.

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Speaker 1: But yes, for example, yes my skepticism, Adrian, those things

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Speaker 1: have been so obvious for a very time. It's not

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Speaker 1: as if well, we you know, we did have I

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Speaker 1: mean we had we had economic growth of four four

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Speaker 1: and a half five percent, and we we you know,

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Speaker 1: we built up a cash reserve in our economy, which

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Speaker 1: was contested illogically at the time. But our problems are

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Speaker 1: twenty years old and they haven't changed much. And the

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Speaker 1: solutions that are being offered now are the solutions that

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Speaker 1: were offered five years ago and ten years and fifteen

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Speaker 1: years ago. So my skepticism is, why would we now

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Speaker 1: start to believe that things are going to be different.

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Speaker 2: Look, I mean that the purpose of a conference was

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Speaker 2: not that. It wasn't to say things are going to change.

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Speaker 2: It was I think to highlight how things could change.

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Speaker 2: And I don't like living in a hopeless society. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: And I think the point was to illustrate to our

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Speaker 2: readers and the public at large that all hope isn't lost.

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Speaker 2: There's other countries that has done this, and there are

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Speaker 2: things you can do that we haven't done, very practical things,

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Speaker 2: and this is where crime, for example, comes in. John,

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Speaker 2: we had Andy Mortibi, the new NPA head, Anton Duplici.

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Speaker 2: They recently required Deputy NPA head is now Head of

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Speaker 2: Business against Crime on a panel and Professor Iva Kinnes,

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Speaker 2: and you know, they made very good points about police

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Speaker 2: and how poorly the police governance has been for all

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Speaker 2: to see now through them at longer commission, and how

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Speaker 2: we can simply change many of that top top structured

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Speaker 2: police leadership to make a big impact in crime, which

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Speaker 2: will have a direct knock on effect on the economy

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Speaker 2: and investment. So there are things we should be doing

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Speaker 2: and I think that's important for me, for South Africa,

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Speaker 2: and that's the role of I think needs twenty four

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Speaker 2: in all of this was for us to show to

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Speaker 2: the country they ease, there are solutions. There are others

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Speaker 2: who's got plans. There are local leaders in South Africa's

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Speaker 2: got plans to make a dent on this