The African National Congress (ANC) in the North West Province said the Covid-19 pandemic and load-shedding harmed the country's economy. This by making it difficult for the organisation to achieve some of their manifesto commitments for the past five years, said provincial Chairperson Dumile Maloyi. Maloyi revealed this during the provincial 2019 Manifesto Review in Potchefstroom, in the JB Marks Local Municipality, on Saturday.
The Deputy President of the ANC, Paul Mashatile, and various members of the National Executive Committee (NEC), Provincial Executive Committee (PEC) and the provincial leaders of the alliance partners COSATU, SANCO, and SACP were also part of the event. Maloyi said the North West Province has the highest unemployment rate in the country at 53 percent, and this has led them to come up with new strategies to fight and drop the unemployment rate within the province.
He said that last Friday, they had a successful meeting with internal and external investors in Rustenburg, who have made a pledge of more than R151 billion to the North West Province, which will help the province create jobs and fix the infrastructure, including the electricity challenges. It was during this meeting that the mining sector in the province was given the directive to modify all the raw minerals mined in the province, which will lead to more job creation so that by September 2024, the unemployment rate will at least be at 20 percent in the province.
"The North West Province has different minerals that are mined here, but still, we don't have the School of Mining Engineering. I have spoken to the Minister of Mineral Resources (Gwede Mantashe) and he agreed that the province would have that school, and it will be opened in Rustenburg, and there will also be a medical school built in Matlosana," said Maloyi. Students battling with accommodation at the tertiary level will also be something of the past in the province, as Maloyi has made a commitment that they are going to build student accommodation in Mahikeng, Rustenburg and Potchefstroom.
Mashatile said there are several achievements made over the past years, from their obligations to their 2019 Manifesto, stating that they are now above 90 percent in building houses for poor people and ensuring that South Africans have access to safe, drinkable water. Mashatile also said that there are challenges they faced, indicating that the economy of the country has not grown the the way they wanted it to, with eight million people who are unemployed in the country.
Mashatile said that despite the economic growth of 0.4 percent in the first quarter and 0.6 percent in the second quarter this year, they are still not happy. He said they want to put much effort into the economy, particularly the infrastructure. He further alluded to the successful investment meeting that the Acting Premier Maloyi had with investors who committed to invest R151 billion to build the economy of the province and to invest in building roads and investing in infrastructure.
He said one of the biggest challenges they are faced is load-shedding. He said they hope that by 2024, load-shedding would be a thing of the past with the efforts that the Minister of Electricity (Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa) is putting. Mashatile conceded that factions within the ANC affect the service delivery to the community, but also made a call to their members in the North West Province to unite as "this is the only way that the organisation will succeed".
