Opinion / Letters LETTER: Let’s talk overpopulation BL PREMIUM

We have many challenges in SA, not least the desperate need to improve our health and education outcomes and reduce growing unemployment. We all know the country needs a reasonable growth rate to generate the tax revenue required to meet these challenges, and this alone is cause for worry as the latest forecast for 2018 is only 1.2 % — far below what is needed. Many heads far brighter than mine are talking about the various actions needed to improve this economic growth rate, but there is another side to this problem — the current population growth rate. We were told earlier this week that the population is now over 57-million, which is far too high in terms of both actual people and the rate of growth relative to the wealth being created. Why is it that no one seems prepared to talk about the unaffordable population growth rate, when it is one of the most important factors to be considered in addressing the economic circumstances in which the country finds itself? I appreciate that...