Johannesburg - President
Jacob Zuma's State of the Nation address did not focus on the core way to create jobs, an economist said on Thursday.
"I think we are never going to create jobs at the scale that is needed if we do not have... a small business strategy, and small business hardly got a mention," said Chris Hart, chief strategist at Investment Solutions.
"I think there is a such a high degree of sincerity and belief in what they are attempting to do in government... but it [the State of the nation address] skirts the core issue completely."
The only known way to create jobs on a mass scale was through small business, he said.
"And the only known way to capitalise small business is to improve household savings... and this was not mentioned."
Hart said Zuma had spoken of huge investments in infrastructure, but did not mention savings and investment, which was needed capitalise it. He said the speech had been hostile towards the private sector in a number of areas.
"There was a whole array of stakeholders left out or targeted with hostility... in particular the private sector."
The focus of the address was "very introspective" in seeing the government as having the ability to solve the country's problems without partnering with the private sector.
Some of the areas Hart saw as hostile to business included the introduction of the women empowerment and gender equality bill, changes to land reform in Zuma's criticism of the willing buyer, willing seller principle and the intention to criminalise fronting.
He welcomed the reduction in port changes.
"Government is starting to recognise that investment rollout by just hiking prices to pay for it is an obstacle... this is a very positive development."
Zuma did not address one of the main obstacles to doing business in South Africa - the huge regulatory burden.
"There are huge costs imposed on doing business in South Africa that are not imposed anywhere else," Hart said.
"And the regulatory onion that is being constructed is going to see more, with labour broking, land reform, gender balance, mining regulations in the pipeline."
However, the speech was upbeat and optimistic compared to previous years, Hart said.