Thomas Johnson - The Blog

Politicians take credit for the good news they're not responsible for, but don't take blame when they are.  So it is that periodically the DA takes credit for the Western Cape having a lower unemployment rate than SA as a whole https://www.da.org.za/2024/05/western-cape-and-cape-town-have-the-best-jobs-and-service-delivery-record-in-south-africa-statssa. Misinterpreting the job data, they take credit for the number of employed persons that increased between their arbitrary reference periods (I suspect cherry picking when the data is favourable). They claim they are responsible for "new jobs" being "created" (https://www.gov.za/news/media-statements/western-cape-stats-sa-quarterly-labour-force-survey-30-oct-2018) and the province's or Cape Town's "upward economic trajectory" and so on.  These claims are unprovable, specious and even false. At best it's a chronic misunderstanding of how the economy works, which SA's politicians don...

There's a short YouTube video of Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis standing outside the civic centre holding pages he says is Stats SA's Quarterly Labour Force Survey. The video's title is "DA creates 86,000 jobs".  Looking like a pupil who won a medal for good marks, unable to contain himself, he points to a page and says Cape Town has 86,000 more jobs than - I didn't get which period - last quarter or last year.  Recently mayco for economic development James Vos similarly wrote in an advertorial they - he, DA and city - are personally responsible for the city's upward "economic trajectory". Little to no credit for citizens and business who actually do the work.  The DA keep making these unfounded, unprovable claims that they "created" x number new jobs in the Western Cape and Cape Town over a period. When Hill-Lewis was the DA's finance spokesman, he made a speech in Parliament claiming such. I emailed asking for evidence, which...

 The DA has repeatedly claimed that through their sole efforts they're creating jobs in the Western Cape, and, therefore, unemployment is the lowest in the country. The latest is Western Cape MEC for finance and economic opportunities Mireille Wenger (March 23) and Premier Alan Winde.  Both also mention, compared to nationally, the WC has a higher quality of life (HDI) and lower inequality - a negligibly lower Gini is purportedly proof of their success (note it's their success, not the people's who make the region what it is). Several years ago various DA members including then leader Mmusi Maimane and finance spokesman Geordin Hill-Lewis claimed the DA in the WC "created" between 400,000 and 600,000 "new jobs [sic]" (the number varied depending on the person speaking) between 2009 and 2019. They used either the official or expanded (discouraged jobseeker) unemployment rates, whichever was favourable to their interpretation of unemployment numbers. Incid...