GDP decline should serve as wake-up call for government, says Cosatu

Trade union federation Cosatu said the decline in the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) should serve as a wake-up call for the government to urgently maintain public infrastructure.

On Tuesday, Statistics South Africa announced that the country’s economy had shrunk by 0.7% in the second quarter of this year.

It cited load shedding and the KwaZulu-Natal floods, among others, for the decline.

Cosatu said that it was not shocked that the country’s GDP shrunk in the second quarter of 2022.

“Electricity load shedding, fuel price hikes, interest rate hikes and budget cuts have acted as a drag on the economy for the last couple of months,” said spokesperson Sizwe Pamla.

He called on business and government to improve efforts of growing the country’s economy.

“We hope that the upcoming mid-term budget policy statement will abandon the microeconomics framework that is based on austerity measures and will allocate resources to townships and rural economies because economies are made up of people,” Pamla said.

Pamla said that they wanted efforts to rid the country of load shedding to be fast-tracked in a bid to avoid a further decline in the GDP.

-EWN

In other news – Huge blow for Gomora fans as actress Velile Makhoba (Gugu) leaves the show

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The budding actress portrayed the character of Gugulethu in the telenovela, but all things pertaining to her character came to an end last week. Taking to her Instagram page she announced her exit and said Gomora has paved a golden road for her and sharpened her gift. Learn More