The government's spending plans envisages R846bn being spent on projects ranging from roads and water works to building schools and clinics in rural areas over the next three years.
Stuiver wondered whether the money would be spent in three years as planned. Speaking after the group's half-year results to March, he said it seemed as though the government's infrastructural projects were taking long to get off the ground.
"The decision is based on two factors, the world economic situation and the investment needs in (our own) infrastructure and (that of) third parties,"' Femexfut general secretary Decio de Maria said.
Despite the increase in employment from 11.3 million in March 2003 to 13.6 million in March 2009 and the attendant decline in unemployment rate from 31.2 percent to 23.5 percent over the same period, the country has witnessed massive job losses in the recent months, says the report, released on Friday.
According to the Development Indicators, 267 000 jobs were lost in the second quarter of 2009.
Speaking at the Steel & Engineering Industries Federation of South Africa (Seifsa) annual conference, he said that these so-called shock absorbers would allow the country’s economy to recover by next year, growing by about 2,5%.
“A 2,5% growth rate is not exceptional, but it is indeed not a bad performance considering the severity of the global downturn that is impacting on us,” he said at the conference in Johannesburg.
The government had implemented a flexible and competitive rand exchange rate, counter cyclical fiscal policies complemented by falling inflation rates, as well as infrastructure spend, as shock absorbers.
However, these measures would not prevent Africa’s largest economy from entering a recession, Le Roux said.
South Africa’s gross domestic product (GDP) contracted by 1,8% in the final quarter of 2008, and soon-to-be-released first-quarter GDP figures will indicate whether the country is in a recession.
The recession forms the backdrop to the SportAccord convention and International Olympic Committee executive board meetings in Denver, the biggest gathering of international sports officials in the United States since the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City.
More than 1,000 delegates are expected to attend the conference, which will feature key public presentations Wednesday by the four candidates for the 2016 Olympics -- Chicago, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo. With six months to go before the Oct. 2 vote in Copenhagen, the cities are trying to position themselves as the most financially secure to cope with the downturn.
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Despite the pressures, London organizers remain confident they will come within the overall 9.325 billion pound ($13.6 billion) budget for venues, infrastructure and regeneration. The figure is more than double the original estimate.