Johannesburg - The biggest problem facing the economy is education, according to a SA Chamber of Industry and Commerce (Sacci) survey released on Thursday.
“Last year the police and justice system stood head and shoulders above everything else. This year, it's education,” Sacci CEO Neren Rau told media in Johannesburg.
When asked which area of the public service requires most attention, a third of about 150 business leaders surveyed chose education.
This was followed by 21% who picked local government. Police, health and home affairs each received 10% of the votes, while 6% singled out justice.
Rau said this year's survey showed an “alarmingly strong negative bias”.
“Members' experience has been fairly bitter in 2010,” he said.
“At the moment our concern is the festive season trade. We are not sensing the type of build-up previously experienced by this time... we hope for a dramatic turnaround in the next few weeks.”
Otherwise this could pave the way for a poor performance in the first half of 2011.
Rau said it was “quite concerning” that just over half of the respondents rated the performance of the current national leadership as poor, while only 7% found it good.
The cabinet reshuffle might address this, he said.
He pointed out that many of the respondents were small, medium and micro-enterprise (SMME) owners, so their opinions could reflect their experience with local government delivery.