SA’s high unemployment rate attributed to state inefficiency, corruption

Labour expert, Professor Lucien Van Der Walt, believes state inefficiency and corruption contribute to the country’s 31.9% unemployment rate.

He was commenting on the DA’s bid to have a section of the Employment Equity Amendment Act declared unconstitutional, claiming it perpetuates apartheid’s race-based laws – a little more than 30 years into democracy.

However, Professor Van der Walt believes that the state has been on the right track, saying it just lacks the ability to implement the law due to restricted capacity.

“At one level we have businesses struggling to carry out their basic operations because of unreliable power, costly and unreliable transport systems, water shortages, etc. A lot of businesses just can’t afford to buy, for instance, generators, or invertors because the margins are just too narrow. State has a lot of – on paper – very good plans but it is also terrible at implementation,” says Prof Van Der Walt.

As a result, he says, the ANC-led government’s mouth-watering promises to ordinary South Africans end up as just lip service.

The ANC has on the other hand slammed the DA’s move as a direct attack on the country’s development and transformation efforts.

“The regressive action is not only an affront to the National Constitution but a direct assault on the very foundation of South Africa’s transformation journey” says the ANC in a statement.

DA’S ATTACK ON EMPLOYMENT EQUITY IS A BETRAYAL OF SOUTH AFRICA’S CONSTITUTIONAL PROMISE

The African National Congress condemns in the strongest possible terms the Democratic Alliance’s (DA) latest attempt to undermine the Employment Equity Amendment Act (EEAA). This regressive… pic.twitter.com/jv3VYLJY5B

— ANC SECRETARY GENERAL | Fikile Mbalula (@MbalulaFikile) May 6, 2025

Professor Van der Walt says the GNU partners’ fiction reveals some of the issues inherent in party-politics, where groups feel the need to compete rather than co-existing peacefully to ensure that the interests of citizens are upheld.

“Parties are based on a model where they compete with each other for support, which then translates into seats, government jobs, and public profile,” says Professor Van Der Walt.

“Part of this competition is that parties emphasise where they differ rather than where they agree and these are patterns that carry on,” adds the scholar.

Professor Van Der Walt has heaped some praise on the country’s employment equity laws over the years, saying they have, fundamentally, altered work spaces.

“You can see this in quite a number of professions, in the state, as well as in the private sector. Measure for employment equity were brought in and there was a general consensus that these needed to be brought in to deal with a history of segregated jobs, segmented work places, legalise job reservation by race, and to some extent legalise job reservation by sex and customary restrictions,” say Professor van der Walt.

However, he remarks that employment equity is not what is not a silver bullet for the country’s mass unemployment.

“Employment equity cannot resolve the general problem of employment in South Africa because that problem can only be solved by mass job creation and the creation of better paying jobs and that’s not something employment equity can tackle,” says Prof van der Walt.

The DA’s Willie Aucamp deems the equity Act that’s in dispute as non-pragmatic, saying it is racially discriminating.

The DA stands for redress that opens doors for ALL disadvantaged South Africans based on fairness, not race quotas.

Quotas divide people, dehumanise people and destroy jobs. That’s why the DA is in court: to fight for opportunity for all.

Watch it live: https://t.co/8V0yl6D8l3 pic.twitter.com/H7GxmfoMiw

— Democratic Alliance (@Our_DA) May 6, 2025

“If you are an Indian person in Kwa Zulu Natal or a Colored person in the Western Cape and all of a sudden countrywide dues are applied with regards to employment equity in your specific area that you live, it will mean that an Indian person in Kwa Zulu Natal will not be able to get a job or colored people in the Western Cape. That is discrimination and it cannot work. This act will not contribute towards job creation,” says Aucamp. Written by Odirile Rabolao