May 27, 2013.
From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Motshabi Hoaeane.
Making headlines:

Deputy Public Works Minister Jeremy Cronin tells National Planning Commissioner Bobby Godsell that the National Development Plan is fatally flawed. 

The International Monetary Fund says Arab Spring nations face delayed economic recovery.

And, Minerals Minister Susan Shabangu tells the National Union of Mineworkers that future mines will be technology driven.

Deputy Public Works Minister Jeremy Cronin told National Planning Commissioner and former mining luminary Bobby Godsell in a public debate over the weekend that South Africa’s National Development Plan (or NDP) was fatally flawed and impossible to implement.

Cronin, who is the deputy general-secretary of the South African Communist Party (or SACP) and an African National Congress National Executive Committee member, was disdainful of the negligible inequality reduction being targeted, which seeks to triple, in real terms, the 2010 size of the South African economy by 2030, lower unemployment to 6% and reduce inequality on the Gini coefficient – where 0 represents perfect equality – from 0.7% in 2009 to 0.6% in 17 years time.

He also criticised the 26-person National Planning Commission for being made up of 25 part-timers, some with day jobs that bore little resemblance to their commission roles.

Godsell, the currrent Business Leadership South Africa chairperson, urged critics to avoid turning the NDP into a dead letter, which he said was more of a roadmap than a plan, and thus still eminently debatable.

A senior International Monetary Fund (or IMF) official said that Arab spring countries face rising social tensions which could thwart an early economic recovery from over two years of political turmoil that has worsened fiscal pressures and threatens macroeconomic stability.

Masood Ahmed, IMF Director for the Middle East and North Africa, said oil importers Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt and Jordan faced the double shocks of high energy and food import bills and the impact of a global economic downturn along with growing popular disaffection since the wave of Arab revolts, over two years ago.

He said that the political transitions in the affected countries are turning to be more prolonged and contentious, with high unemployment and rising social unrest. Meanwhile, political turmoil was hurting much needed private investments.

Ahmed said the challenge this year is to manage the expectation of an increasingly impatient population to undertake the measures that would stabilise the economy and begin to lay the foundations of an economic transformation that would generate more job creation and inclusive growth.

Minerals Minister Susan Shabangu told South Africa’s biggest mining union over the weekend that technological innovations would drive the mines of the future, which would need to be run by young people with the appropriate skills.

Urging the central executive committee of the National Union of Mineworkers (or NUM) to rise to the new challenge, Shabangu denigrated the current migrant labour system of recruitment as unsustainable, against the changed background of large numbers of unemployed young people now living on the doorsteps of many mines.

Critical domestic issues contributing to the vulnerability of the South African economy were fractious labour relations, the risk of protracted work stoppages and downside risks to job creation.

Shabangu urged NUM to resist the forces that appeared hell-bent on bringing it down, in the same way as the once powerful British National Union of Mineworkers had been brought down in the mideighties.

Also making headlines:

US Secretary of State John Kerry raises concern about allegations of gross human rights violations with Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan.

And, the New Partnership for Africa's Development is expected to launch a web portal on AU infrastructure projects.

That's a roundup of news making headlines today.