More ANC lies!

'Manuel is wrong about jobless'

Anchen Dreyer, who speaks for the Democratic Alliance on labour matters, has hit out at Finance Minister Trevor Manuel for saying the unemployment figures are exaggerated.

"He should retract this remark and rather make some proposals to the new cabinet to address the government's thus far stultified and uninspired approach to job creation," she said on Wednesday.

Manuel was reported as saying in an interview on the BBC's Hard Talk on Monday, that World Bank figures suggesting that unemployment in South Africa could be as high as 40% do "not accord with reality".

"Manuel is once again ignoring the South Africans - numbering more than a million - who don't even look for work because they feel hopeless, and are therefore excluded from the unemployment figures," Dreyer said.

To address the jobless situation, Dreyer proposes freeing up the labour market with a review of labour legislation, to make it easier for businesses and individuals to employ people and implementing proposals such as the Chrysalis Academy, pioneered by the former DA Western Cape provincial government, aimed at giving young South

Africans at risk of falling into a life of crime the opportunity to learn marketable skills.

She also calls for creating opportunity vouchers which would give young, poor South Africans the opportunity to either study further or open a small business, and could be used as an employment subsidy.

"If properly implemented, these measures would immediately jumpstart growth, create many opportunities for employment and remove the need for Minister Manuel to deny our unemployment crisis,"