ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by sketching the situation that the ANC-led government inherited a picture of the state in which the economy was left as a result of apartheid. It provides an account of how the economic program of the African Nationalist Congress (ANC) developed from the vague Freedom Charter to the Reconstruction and Development Programme in 1994 and the related Growth, Employment and Redistribution strategy in 1996. The chapter discusses some of the most important difficulties with the strategy that finally emerged as obstacles that must be overcome if the goals were attained, that is, the 'after' stage was ever to be reached. After the fall of apartheid South Africa had rejoined the international community which, in turn, means that the factor price equalization theorem was expected to apply. The chapter concludes that there was no automatic mechanism that guaranteed that the government was able to honor its economic promises.
