The declining share of the primary and secondary sectors of the economy and the incumbent rise of the tertiary sector as a major contributor to the country’s gross domestic product had worsened economic conditions for South Africa, former Reserve Bank Governer Tito Mboweni has said.

“Be wary of any politician who comes to you to promise jobs. There are no jobs. There has been a substantial change in the nature of the South African economy that we must accept and deal with,” he said on Tuesday during a keynote address at the launch of the fourth edition of the Coega Development Corporation’s (CDC's) Perspectives journal.

While acknowledging that significant development outcomes had been achieved since 1994, he noted that certain economic and national challenges had worsened, and called for renewed national attention on issues including corruption, employment and capital.

Most urgent, he advocated, was the need for State and civil recommitment to education.

“Therein lies our problem – the skills required for the tertiary sector are not found among our people. Our education system is not producing, in the required numbers, the skills set needed for this bigger slice of the economy,” he said.

While he stressed the need for a larger number of people with structured post-matric qualifications, he believed that the current education budget was adequate to achieve this objective.

Mboweni added that the prevention of corruption should be considered a further national priority and warned policy and law makers not to overlook the fact that the South African Constitution was the supreme law of the country and that no politician was above this document.

“People who draft laws sometimes forget that they might have to one day stand in front of the court and be judged by the same laws. Any benefit that is not due to you is corruption,” he argued.

The Perspectives journal was launched four years ago by the CDC in collaboration with the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University and sought to stimulate debate among professionals, specialists and young academics on issues of industrial and economic development.