With the first quarter GDP decline of 0.6% caused mainly by the platinum strike, South Africa has a self-inflicted wound that may just end up dragging the country into recession.

According to the platinum industry there is no likelihood of starting production until sometime in the third quarter. This means that we will see a slump in mining production in the second quarter.

The strike is also affecting other industries, such as the retail sector, which just amplifies the possibility that the second quarter will also see negative growth.

An economic slump is labelled a recession when there are two consecutive quarters where the economy contracts. That now seems very likely and this is not good news.

South Africa will again drop well below the average world growth. It is also evident that more and more South African firms look to invest in other African countries, as they see higher returns and less risk in these markets than in South Africa.

Foreigners are losing interest in SA. Growth is seen as the driving force for further investment and outside of telecommunications and the heavily subsidised motor industry not much fixed investment is happening at present. Firms want certainty and a government that sits on its hands during a long and protracted strike shows that the state is not interested in helping to achieve certainty.

The bigger question is that while the world is in recovery mode, South Africa’s growth is dwindling. Clearly the strike and other factors are showing that our interventionist state is ruining our ability to lift people out of poverty.

Our competitiveness rankings are also more than likely to drop even further. SA is dropping off the investment monitor and even South African entrepreneurs who are the backbone of wealth and job creation in the country, are looking elsewhere for growth.

This is neither the time for scoring political points nor to wait for strikes to end. It is time to get people back to work while mediation takes place. It is a rough deal but many of the new ministers are going to have to work extremely hard to get the economy going again.

With the lowest employment rate of any middle or upper income country in the world, South Africa needs government to lead us to follow in the footsteps of other countries which have seen good growth. Government needs to create confidence, be proactive and should not sit on the sidelines waiting for things to happen.

Poverty is a function of unemployment, not the salaries paid to CEOs. The wage gap is not the creator of inequality; it is rather the difference between those who have jobs and those who don’t.