White Economist warns: South Africa is in serious trouble

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Efficient Group chief economist Dawie Roodt said South Africans should be worried about the country’s deteriorating institutions and governmental service levels.

Speaking to Groot FM, Roodt said the country is busy falling back in many fields, including economic activity and safety.

“South Africa is falling behind the rest of the world in economic growth, how much electricity it is producing, and law and order,” he said.

He added that the recent greylisting by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is another example of how the country is deteriorating.

“We are not only falling behind where we used to be, but also against the rest of the world, and even against other African countries.”

Roodt said many poor sub-Saharan African countries are busy catching up to South Africa in many areas.

“Where we were considered a first-world country in many respects twenty or thirty years ago, we are now a middle- to low-income country,” he said.

“At this rate, South Africa is heading to become just another poor country at the southern tip of Africa.”

South Africa is in serious trouble
Roodt previously warned that South Africa is in serious trouble and that things will get worse because of poor macroeconomic policies.

Roodt said there are many reasons South Africans suffer economically, including the Ukraine war, the slowdown in the global economy, and rising inflation rates.

However, the biggest reason for South Africa’s economic hardship is the government’s business-unfriendly policies.

“The government has been implementing the wrong things and mismanaged the economy for many years,” he said.

The combination of global economic challenges, high inflation and interest rates, poor policies, and load-shedding have hammered local economic growth.

The South African Reserve Bank slashed South Africa’s GDP growth forecasts for 2023 to 0.3% because of higher-than-expected load-shedding and other logistical constraints.

Roodt explained that slow economic growth would result in rising unemployment and higher poverty levels.

The combination of rising unemployment and poverty and rising food and energy prices creates a toxic mix which can cause social unrest.

The answer to these problems, Roodt said, is strong political leadership to make the right business decisions. However, it is not happening.

“I am afraid our political leaders are absent. They are not there to lead the country because there is so much infighting in the ANC that they are not even aware of all the problems,” he said.

Source: https://dailyinvestor.com/south-africa/10361/south-africans-should-be-worried/?utm_source=everlytic&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=businesstech