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President Cyril Ramaphosa’s closing address to the ANC Special NEC set out ten interventions to “reignite growth” and promised “implementation, implementation, implementation.” The FW de Klerk Foundation welcomes the renewed focus on energy, logistics, professionalisation of the public service and export growth. But implementation will only change outcomes if it is paired with market-friendly reforms, institutional independence and constitutional accountability.

The Foundation supports decisive action to expand the electricity grid and unlock private investment in transmission and generation. This aligns with opening the electricity market to competition - vital for growth and jobs. However, the proposal for “preferential electricity tariffs for ferrochrome, manganese and steel” risks market distortion and cross-subsidisation. Temporary, transparent relief may be justified where systemic failures harmed firms, but permanent price preferences entrench inefficiency and shift costs onto households and other industries.

Similarly, accelerating Transnet’s recovery with genuine private participation in rail and ports and clear, competitive access regimes, is essential. What matters now is regulatory certainty, transparent procurement and insulation from patronage. Industrial parks and provincial growth strategies should focus on secure, serviced sites and the rule of law; government must provide infrastructure and safety, while markets decide which sectors thrive.

On chrome and manganese, talk of export tariffs and defensive duties points to protectionism rather than competitiveness. South Africa’s prosperity depends on open, rules-based trade. Diversifying partners via the AfCFTA and sustaining access to major markets is preferable to raising barriers that invite retaliation and raise costs downstream.

The President’s emphasis on professionalising the public service, merit-based appointments and consequence management is constitutionally sound. But the test is depoliticised recruitment and enforcement - every time. The same applies to SOE reform: capability has improved in places, yet unbundling monopolies, enforcing governance standards and opening markets to competition remain non-negotiable.

On this note, the NEC doubled down on Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (“BBBEE”), pledging to intensify race-based empowerment to “correct injustices” and “end inequality” as a central pillar of its economic plan. The FW de Klerk Foundation, however, has consistently advocated for a shift away from quota-driven BBBEE toward a non-racial, market-friendly model of empowerment based on actual disadvantage, skills and inclusive growth. The Foundation has sounded the trumpet that the current framework often fosters elitism, discourages investment and undermines genuine broad-based development.

Furthermore, public employment programmes can cushion hardship, but they cannot substitute for private-sector job creation. Skills pipelines and apprenticeships should be demand-led and fiscally sustainable. Expanding SMME finance through blended-finance risk sharing is sensible only if development institutions are catalytic, not politicised lenders and if performance is disclosed and enforced.

The Foundation notes the plan to “mobilise pension funds” and “align fiscal, monetary, trade and industrial policy.” Any step toward prescribed assets would undermine property rights and savings and conflict with the Constitution’s institutional safeguards. Investment must be voluntary, at market returns and supported by credible, bankable projects - nothing else will crowd in capital at scale.

Yes, the proposed “economic war room” can improve coordination, but it must not centralise power at the expense of parliamentary oversight and transparent performance reporting. Scorecards must be public, methodologically sound and independently verifiable.

“If ‘implementation’ means protecting competition, property rights and institutional independence, we will see investment and jobs,” said Ismail Joosub, Manager of Constitutional Advancement at the FW de Klerk Foundation. “If it means tariff preferences, protectionism and centralised control, we will simply rearrange the deck chairs.”

“South Africans need a state that sets fair rules and then gets out of the way,” added Christo van der Rheede, Executive Director of the FW de Klerk Foundation. “Fix the grid, fix the rails, professionalise the public service, uphold the rule of law - and capital and talent will do the rest.”

The Foundation calls for a clear implementation timetable published to the public; legislative steps to lock in professionalisation and competitive access in network industries; transparent, time-bound relief where needed; and an unequivocal rejection of prescribed assets. South Africa will not grow by decree. It will grow when constitutional governance and free markets are allowed to work.

Issued by Ismail Joosub on behalf of the FW de Klerk Foundation