'Nobody wants to be a hadeda': Three scenarios for the future of South Africa's economy

On the same day that the Reserve Bank (SARB) governor announced the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) had decided to keep interest rates on hold, a series of scenarios painting the possible future of our economy were released.

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The research from the Bureau for Economic Research (BER) outlines a route to economic success for South Africa from 2026 through to 2030.

It uses bird imagery to paint three different scenarios:

• The Hadeda (muddling through) 
• The Marabou Stork (low road)
• The African Fish Eagle (high road)

BER senior economist Roy Havemann walks Stephen Grootes through the findings.

He says the Marabou Stork (the 'Undertaker Bird') scenario essentially means a return to the state capture years.

"We describe the Marabou economy as one that scavenges on hope and buries growth, but it really fails to reform and locks in decline. We see poor spending again and bad decisions when it comes to the overall policy environment and obviously a return to the days of corruption."

While the outlook for a Hadeda economy is less bleak, it is also not one the country can afford.

As Havemann says, most of us have very much a love/hate relationship with the hadeda, which is possibly also our relationship with the economy at the moment.

"The economy is growing but not particularly fast; it's twice as fast as last year but that is still not fast enough to get us going. And that is where we seem to be at the moment - we're struggling to take flight; the economy is muddling along but we're not creating jobs at the rate we'd like to."

And while there are reforms being implemented that are cause for hope, the pace is slow: "Overall we're just muddling through and flapping our wings, hoping for the best."

The best-case scenario is of course the Fish Eagle economy, where the BER envisages growth of 3% or higher over the next few years.

The document sets out ten things required to achieve this, ranking action to curb crime and corruption as the top priority.

Their work was based partly on BER surveys informing the Business Confidence Index and Consumer Confidence Index, Havemann says.

The Bureau also had sessions with CEOs, general businesspeople, senior civil servants and academics.

"It was really interesting that this turned around crime and corruption and what the government  is doing about it, and we decided to put that as our number one big intervention to get the economy moving again."

"I think it's not an overly ambitious scenario. It is possible for us to get back to that 2015 era, maybe even 2012, where things weren't ideal, but much better than they are at the moment."

Scroll up to the audio player to listen to the full discussion about what it will take to achieve the best outlook for South Africa's economy