There is a tendency to regard South Africa’s economic problems as so deep and entrenched that overcoming them will require decades of extraordinary political leadership and institutional reconstruction. This is mistaken. South Africa’s problems remain remarkably easy to fix, and the solutions are neither mysterious nor revolutionary. The following five reforms, all within the country’s reach, would easily triple the rate of economic growth and transform the lives of millions of people.

The first is to refit and extend the productive life of South Africa’s coal-fired power stations. The country retains a substantial generating fleet, extensive coal reserves, and much of the technical expertise necessary to restore generating capacity. The Common Sense has previously demonstrated how a refurbishment programme could provide the reliable electricity needed to support economic growth of 4.0% to 5.0% annually over the medium term. The infrastructure required already exists. It needs to be restored and properly maintained.

The second is to exploit South Africa’s oil and gas resources. The country possesses vast offshore petroleum resources that remain substantially untapped and even unexplored. At the upper end of its resource potential, The Common Sense has estimated that South Africa could become one of the world’s 20 leading oil and gas exporters, creating new industries, employment, export earnings, and government revenue. Becoming that requires nothing more complicated than opening the door to investors.

The third is to transfer the operation of South Africa’s ports and freight railways fully to private operators. The current approach of trying to do that half with the state and half with private operators is never going to work. The private operators are standing by to do this, and all that needs to happen is to concession the whole port and rail network, and South Africa’s export potential would multiply.

The fourth is to abolish the capital costs imposed by black economic empowerment requirements, particularly ownership obligations that discourage investment. If you want people not to do something, then tax it. Don’t want smoking? Tax cigarettes. The same is true of capital. It will never fly that demanding 30.0% through the gates gets you anywhere in investment competitiveness terms. Scrap that, and the relative investment competitiveness will leap up to the level of its top-end emerging market peers.

The fifth is to seize the enormous opportunities presented by the world’s two largest economies. South Africa should accept the vast new trade and investment pact on offer from the United States at the same time as taking full advantage of China’s extraordinarily generous offer of tariff-free access to its vast domestic market. Just say yes to both offers, and the economic growth outlook leaps upwards. It’s that easy.

There are many other things to do too, but even just ticking the boxes on this short list should raise the economic growth rate to somewhere near 3.0%. Even if that is all that ever happens, it will do so much good for so many people and make their lives so much better. All serious emerging markets manage growth rates in excess of that. It is not difficult to follow suit.