As the president of a country it is important to address certain issues within a country, in this instance it will be crucial to identify the main socio-economic challenges the country faces.

Peoples priorities is the first factor we will have to look at. If for instance the water demand is greater than the supply, then there would certainly be a problem. As farmers and people from rural areas,who are dependant on water supply for life and irrigation purposes, would have to look for another solution. Such as rainwater or alternative sources to get access to water.

People should participate in the development projects which are aimed to help them, otherwise the projects will be completed, but they will be unsuccessful as the pleas of the people wouldn’t have been answered as to what they need. The people need to be consulted while the project is being planned, as to determine their needs and assess whether its possible to provide what they want.

Widespread adoptions of the same system would be a step in the right direction for the successful implementation of the new project. For instance if you encourage the people to all start using the same harvesting technique and equipment through campaigns and tutorials showing the use and maintenance thereof, then its more likely that they will follow suit.

The big problem with this is the difference in areas. By assuming a system will work in all areas because it works well in one, is a blueprint for failure. Different cultures and weather makes the different areas susceptible for a different project and implementation thereof.

A big socio economic issue will always be gender, race and equity. As its apparent in this day and age with the current enforcement of BEE and the ongoing disruptions about the statues of the past.
It wouldn’t be beneficial towards the greater good if a project is aimed at being beneficial only towards one group or race of people.

Use of land, this is an area of concern for everyone. How should it be redistributed? Should landgrabs be viable? There are so many ideas about how to go about this. But none of them are sustainable in the long run, as the government cant keep buying the farmers land, and redistributing it to the previously disadvantaged people.

The main socio-economic challenges would be
1- Growing literacy, If a countries citizens aren’t able to read or use a computer they wont be able to study. And if they cant study, then they cant go to university and get a good job. And this influences the unemployment sector. So we must build more double medium schools in rural areas and increase the level of education at these areas. We will do this by placing a bigger emphasis on education, and placing the better qualified graduates at these schools. If we are able to accomplish this we will be halfway towards a better future, and all we can hope for is for the people to help us accomplish our goals. Parents shouldn’t be forced to let their children stay at home because they don’t have money to pay for tuition, and children shouldn’t drop out of school. Our aim is to have a 100% school completion rate, meaning everyone that signs up for grade 1 should finish matric. This is improbable but not impossible, so we ask everyone to work together to accomplish this.

2- Equity and social justice, equity is important in every aspect of our daily lives. Be it standing in the same line as another race, getting the same service in a restaurant as another sex, and being protected and reprimended the same as a person from another background or colour. No discrimination should be present. This would be a bit harder to make possible, as you cant change how a single person acts towards a certain outcome. But we will not stand for any sort of discrimination towards any person, doesn’t matter if you’re rich, poor, white, black, male, female. If the situation arises, we will act through the law or social justice systems.

3- Changing employment patterns, we have already started through BEE but the transformation has been very slow and poorly accepted in general. Thus we will have to start forcing it unto employers by placing embargo’s or sanctions against them, and not allowing them to compete nationally or globally if they dont comply with our demands. We hope that this will reawaken our claims to enhance BEE and speed the transformation up for the sake of our people.

4- Increasing aspirations, it is difficult to aspire to greatness when you have been born in a country with no place for non-white people, and where great emphasis is added on race. Thus we know the struggles of many of the people in the rural areas. We will aim to enhance their aspirations, by increasing the amount of money we spend on infrastructure in these areas, building schools, and shopping centres. This will increase opportunities for entrepreneurs in the areas to expand either their current businesses or opening one. These areas present a growing market, so we hope people will invest in these projects and help the communities to grow.

5- Poverty alleviation, South-Africa is known as one of the countries with the greatest gini-coefficient in the world. The difference between the richest of the rich and the poorest of the poor is quite substantial. And we plan to decrease the size of the difference between these two groups of people. We will attempt to do so by enforcing BEE, land distribution and other measures to decrease this phenomena. This won't be an easy task, as the difference cant be wiped out completely over night, and we call for patience in the build up of this project.

6- National economic prosperity, this is a social economic challenge that has to be taken seriously by all citizens in the country. As we all have to strive for greatness to be great. We will do this by working together, and increase South-Africas GDP while attempting to keep inflation and interest rates to a minimum. We need our economy to be strong if we want to be a successful country with a better life standard. Especially for those in rural areas.

7- Urban migration, we have already taken a brief look at this, but we will have a more in depth explanation. People in so called urban areas will have to be more innovative to increase the communities stature. But this won't be possible without proper education, health systems and aspirations to be better or for greatness. Urban areas will have to be included in development, through better infrastructure and maintenance. More public transport, better roads and network signals would be our starting point. These areas have long been susceptible to poor cellphone coverage and no internet connectivity, forcing these people to be or rather feel left behind and secluded from the rest of the world.

8- Disruptions and strikes happens because of underpayment of the workers. This has a negative effect on the countries GDP and performance nationally and globally. When mineworkers, farmworkers or any other service and goods providers strike, there is a general shortage in produce, food, delivery and thus demand overpowers supply. Forcing people to search for alternatives. We will attempt to lower the percentage of strikes by implementing a minimum wage scheme, determined by economic factors such as price, demand and supply, and profit.

9- Political upheavals such as the complaints about the statues from the apartheid’s era will have to be dealt with, as the countries citizens are getting aggravated by this. You can't change history by removing pages from the history books, so we will have to look at another way to deal with this unhappiness without upsetting any one to much. We will speak about this locally as well as in the next parliament meeting. But to go forward, we will have to stop thinking about the past.

10- Electricity supply is a big problem at the moment, and Eskom cant produce enough electricity to supply for the whole country. The demand is far greater than the supply, and thus we have to deal with loadshedding. We are looking at providing Eskom with extra funds to expand their current infrastructure and enabling them to provide us with enough power. But this will only be viable in the future, as theres no easy or quick way to fix the electricity shortage problems we are experiencing at the moment.

11- Improving health systems, this is a big problem for most. Health institutions are very expensive, and a lot of people dont have the money to invest in a good medical aid, forcing them to look to alternative solutions or poorer quality hospitals without all necessary equipment. We will have to build more hospitals, especially in or near rural areas, with all the required equipment as well as qualified personnel. We will also have to subsidize the pricing so that its more affordable to everyone. And we will also have to make people more aware of signs and symptoms of diseases that are life threatening such as cardiac arrest, stroke, HIV and other diseases not mentioned here.

12- South-Africa places to much emphasis on growing through resources rather than development. This is because we dont have enough people capable of producing and inventing goods, and thus we rely on our natural resources. Exporting it, so it could be made into a usable item, and then importing the products made from our resources for a substantial amount more. If we as a country can start using our own resources to create products out of it before we export it, we will increase our income and economic growth quite substantially. This is another reason why there should be emphasis added on better education for everyone.

13- South-Africa is plagued by corruption, and more specifically claims of corruption. If we want to move forward, we will have to convict our thoughts of these claims. And we will have to put an end to corruption, especially in state service entities and also in major businesses. This is why we implement BEE so that people wont be able to discriminate or hire their friends who are the right colour. We will also take a closer look from SARS point of view, to determine who is laundering money, or using accounts in other countries to bypass our tax system.

14- South Africa remains a divided society, as people prefer to only be close with people from their same race and keep a distance between the different cultures. This should be changed, but it can only change if the people all think differently. We cant make the choice for all.

15- South Africa is one of the countries with the highest crime rates in the world, ranging from murders, hijackings, rape, assault and this shows no respect for other peoples property. We will have to address this and increase the level of police work and safety of our countries citizens by better training protocols of the police force

16-Pressure from other parties include the call for landgrabs and nationalizing of mines. Neither of these will even be considered as both pose severe threats to the countries wellbeing. Landgrabs will cause an uproar and even a civil war, while nationalizing the mines would impact the entire economy as it will lead to making the owners richer, and the rest poorer. Only the people who are already rich will benefit

Only after we address al these socio-economic challenges will we as a country be able to fully prosper and live together in harmony. If we are able to put an end to discrimination, and focus on equality in the workplace and not appoint someone who is of a better background instead of another person because of race or any other discriminating factors, we will be on our way to success. And thus we will begin to experience better economic growth, and alleviate some of the poverty experienced across the country. We will all have to live peacefully together, and forget the past and try to move forward from this.

Jurgens van der Vyver
Bestuurs Ekonomie (CCMM515)
14/04/2015
22210520