Infrastructure reform key to lift South Africa growth, BER says

South Africa must invest R200-billion to revive its frayed railways, half that amount again to upgrade water infrastructure, and tackle bottlenecks in both electricity and governance to achieve an economic growth target above 3% a year.

That’s according to the Bureau of Economic Research at Stellenbosch University, which warned that without this spending, the economy will remained stuck in low gear.

Africa’s most industrialized nation has expanded by less than 1% on average for a decade, held back mismanagement, corruption and underinvestment by its state-owned logistics and power utilities. Economists polled by Bloomberg forecast 1.7% growth in 2025.

“Our baseline forecast is that real gross domestic product growth will average just below 2% between 2026 and 2029,” the BER’s Impumelelo Economic Growth Lab said.

While South Africa has since March managed to avoid power blackouts that used to be an almost-daily occurrence, it is now grappling with a worsening water