It notes that the CEO Confidence Index is up in the first quarter, driven by positive sentiment around Cyril Ramaphosa, but cautions that the rise is overdone, revealing a combination of ‘big-business’ political naiveté and lack of analytical rigour, and a near crippling climate of political correctness in public pronouncements. It highlights the possibility of an early (October-November) election, noting that some internal ANC hurdles prevent that at this time, but that if these are overcome the situation changes. The report anticipates little in the way of moves towards structural reform in areas from labour to healthcare, education, investment, entrepreneurship, and property rights, arguing that minimum wage laws will further price people out of work, and that property rights threats will stall much improvement in fixed investment levels.
The government is perceived to remain committed to State-driven redistribution over private sector-driven growth. The report asserts that SA could be set on a growth track to 5% if it introduced the right labour and education reforms, dropped the anti-investment and anti-West rhetoric, sold the parastatals, abandoned counterproductive racial engineering edicts, and secured property rights.
