At the conclusion of my journey in Africa, it’s difficult to
try and sum up my experience. I've been humbled and moved by the magnitude of
poverty, the hardships and most of all the determination to prevail that I've seen a midst the many individuals I've met. There is so much potential in the
country that it just needs to be harnessed and redirected towards productivity.
The labor force is plentiful, labor cheap and race relations slowly improving. For
every Afrikaner still bent on the apartheid ways there are two embracing the
rainbow nation and the promise an integrated South Africa can bring.
Corruption however has been as great a malady as the AIDS
epidemic and poverty in slowing the improvement of the country. The existing
ANC has misdirected the BEE efforts and fattened their pockets at the expense
of the populace. As much as BEE needs a makeover, so do does the government.
Jacob Zuma has been the in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons over the
past few years, and still the ANC has been the favorite every year. It seems
that hollow attempts and promises are enough to secure the majority black vote
and keep them in power.
Unemployment has remained over 20% with no promise to
decline. As stated before, creating skilled workers to fill the demand I think
is the most promising option for the ANC and South Africa instead of a change
in macroeconomic policy. Likewise, as stated in UNDP’s Employment Targeted Program for South Africa, tax incentives
and subsidies to industries with high employment multipliers can act as a
catalyst for the decreasing unemployment.
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