South Africa: Time is not on the side of the poor

The Medium Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS), just announced by the South African government, can be praised for being a hard win in a context that offers few building blocks to make bolder decisions, writes researcher and policy analyst Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen on the South African Civil Society Information Service website. 'However, time is not on the side of the poor and more broadly, the country. A conscious attempt to finalise economic policy that has the best prospect to break unemployment is needed, and such policy should be integrated within government’s policy and budget by the next MTBPS in 2011.'