A second phase of the partnership launched between government and business to tackle South Africa’s electricity, logistics and crime crises has been launched under the Government of National Unity (GNU), with an immediate goal of raising growth to over 3% from 2025.

Speaking at the launch in Johannesburg, President Cyril Ramaphosa described growth as the “glue” that held the GNU parties together, while urging business to work with government to take advantage of the “window of opportunity” opened by the May 29 election results to aim for even higher levels of growth in future.

“If we can achieve more rapid growth, we will create jobs and reduce poverty,” he added.

Discovery CEO Adrian Gore, who has been a leading figure in forging the partnership with government in recent years and in galvanising CEOs to pledge their support for collaborative action, expressed confidence that South Africa could break free from its weak growth performance, which has averaged about 1.2% for more than a decade.

He also outlined the targets that government and business had identified to elevate growth to 3% from next year, including:

• Building 4 GW of additional renewable energy in 2025, which would mobilise R23-billion in private investment;
• Building 1 000 km of new transmission lines;
• Continuing on a trajectory of no loadshedding;
• Increasing the volume of goods railed to 193-million tons against a current base of only 170-million tons, including by facilitating R28-billion in private rail investment; and
• Removing South Africa from the Financial Action Task Force grey list by the end of 2025.

Describing the actions outlined as “stretch targets”, Gore said modelling conducted together with the Bureau for Economic Research indicated that, together with efforts to deliver secure water supply and a rise in national sentiment, the initiatives outlined could increase growth to 3.3% against a baseline for 2025 of closer to 2.2%.

“It's a massive stretch, but then ending loadshedding was a massive stretch target,” he added, speaking more than six months since Eskom last implemented rotational power cuts on March 26.

The partnership between business and government would remain confined to the three priority areas of electricity, freight logistics and crime and corruption, but could extend to additional areas, such as water and infrastructure or support for local government, in future.

Ramaphosa said the GNU, which was approaching 100 days since its formation, was fully committed to following through on the reform agenda in the three priority areas, where problems persisted.

“The challenges in our freight logistics system continue to undermine economic growth and hinder our competitiveness.

“The constraints in our transmission network present a risk to much-needed investments in renewable energy.

“The rate of violent crime remains unacceptably high.

“Our unemployment rate is unsustainable,” the President said.

He added, however, that the recent progress made in tackling problems such as loadshedding had proved the value of working collaboratively.

“We have built credibility and trust by turning plans into action, and we need to continue to turn those plans into real action.

“And everyone in the government that I lead is now motivated to make sure that the next 100 days, the next 300 days, and the next five years, we can turn the plans that we have into real action.”