Pretoria, 09 June-(ANA)-President Jacob Zuma has said that he would not deviate from South Africa's existing "prudent" macro-economic policies, despite his promises to create 500,000 jobs by the end of the year.
In his state of the nation address, Zuma stuck to campaign promises to fight poverty and create mostly temporary jobs through a 98-billion-dollar public works scheme.
Responding to parliament's debate on his speech, Zuma said that he would not abandon the orthodox economic policies that guided South Africa through 17 years of growth that ended only this year when the global downturn pulled the nation into recession.
"We agree with a number of speakers about the seriousness of the global economic crisis," Zuma said.
"We can draw some encouragement from the fact that as South Africans we have not experienced the worst effects of the global downturn, due to the prudent macro-economic policies that had been followed," he said.
"The pursuit of our objectives has always been based on the maintenance of a stable macroeconomic environment. This is not going to change," he told parliament.(ANA)
Amnesty/Report