(AsgiSA) Annual Report 2008 - South African Government Information
(AsgiSA) Annual Report 2008 - South African Government Information
(AsgiSA) Annual Report 2008 - South African Government Information
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Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for <strong>South</strong> Africa<br />
ANNUAL REPORT<br />
<strong>2008</strong><br />
Preface<br />
We are pleased to present our third annual report of the Accelerated and Shared Growth<br />
Initiative for <strong>South</strong> Africa (<strong>AsgiSA</strong>). The reporting period coincides with a global economic<br />
meltdown of potentially historic proportion, and some of the <strong>AsgiSA</strong> programmes have been<br />
critical to <strong>South</strong> Africa’s relative resilience on a global scale.<br />
<strong>AsgiSA</strong>’s mandate is to reduce unemployment and poverty, while increasing the country’s<br />
gross domestic product growth rate to a sustainable level of 6% by 2010, through marshalling<br />
government and private resources to “eliminating” constraints identified as:<br />
• infrastructure backlogs<br />
• shortage of skills and cost impact on low-skilled labour of the apartheid spatial system<br />
• poor international competitiveness of much of our manufacturing and tradable services<br />
sectors<br />
• the relative volatility of the currency<br />
• the regulatory environment for small and medium-sized business and the weakness of the<br />
Second Economy<br />
• the inadequate capacity of government organs to support economic development.<br />
Programmes put in place to “eliminate” these constraints include:<br />
• infrastructure investment<br />
• second-economy initiatives<br />
• skills and education (Joint Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition)<br />
• industrial policies and sector strategies<br />
• macroeconomic policy<br />
• governance interventions<br />
And all have been severely jeopardised by the ensuing global events.<br />
Infrastructure, which is one of <strong>AsgiSA</strong>’s six priorities for intervention, has produced encouraging<br />
results, with meaningful growth in gross fixed capital formation, driven particularly<br />
by the public sector. There could be better alignment between the budgeting process and<br />
projects committed in all governmental departments. National Teasury has implemented an<br />
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