Help needed if SA is going to make it
Presidential top team would, says lobbyist, revive manufacturing
Philippa Rodseth, executive director of the Manufacturing Circle, says a "crack team" with a direct mandate from President Cyril Ramaphosa is needed to turn around South African manufacturing. According to the latest purchasing managers' index and StatsSA figures, the manufacturing sector is still in decline. As it is, it contributes just 12% to the local economy, less than half what it did in the early 1990s. "We can't afford to lose it," she says. "How are we going to create employment in this country on the back of financial services and retail services?" In spite of countless industrial policy action plans, "we're in the process of deindustrialising, with catastrophic socioeconomic implications", she says. A major cause is a lack of expertise and alignment between various government departments. "In the economic cluster you've got the departments of trade and industry, the Treasury, economic development, small business development - a lot of different departments without the ali...
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