Recurring Themes in South Africa's 'Economic Strategies'

Every few years, some part of the South African government - sometimes the Treasury, sometimes the Presidency - puts out a new “economic strategy” for the country. These “strategies” are usually a collection of vague desires that sound agreeable, until you start to think about

• how are these things going to be achieved? are they feasible?
• how do these goals fit together? are they mutually consistent?
• are these desired ends even efficient? would they pass a cost-benefit test individually? collectively?

I’ve been around long enough to have heard several of them, and they all start sounding very similar. I was curious about how similar they actually were, so last December I went through each of the founding documents (at least, the executive summaries and introductions) and made the following table.

One thing that stands out is that a bunch of the “macro” goals have actually been achieved - reduced budget deficits, flexible exchange rates, inflation targeting, more redistributive transfers - but none of the other ones. The tell, of course, is how often the same goals are re-announced. You might think continued failure to achieve a goal would prompt some hard conversations in Pretoria about whether the goal was unrealistic or where the major obstacles were, etc. For all I know, such conversations have happened, but as a whole, the government we have does not really execute on its plans; merely stating them is good enough.