"It almost appears from the lack of infrastructure investment that the government has no confidence in the country," says Schüssler.
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Dawie Roodt, chief economist at The Efficient Group, says that the government is simply eating away at the capital base of the country, instead of maintaining it. His analogy is that the government is eating the proverbial cow, as opposed to milking it.
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The problem, says Schüssler, is that at this stage South Africa already has one of the largest populations that receive some form of income and support from the state, with 26% of the population or 12.4 million people in the net.
This has to be a long-term policy shift, says Schüssler because the number continues to grow, specifically after the announcement yesterday that the child grant age will be increased to 15, and the retirement age for men will be brought down from 65 to 60, over the next couple of years.
The issue really is that it will be extremely difficult to wean people off the social security net, says Schüssler.
