Manuel convenes meeting with Cosatu

South Africa’s Finance Minister Trevor Manuel convened a meeting on Thursday between the Treasury and the Congress of South Africa Trade Unions (Cosatu) in an effort to resolve the numerous socioeconomic and economic challenges facing the country.

Zwelinzima Vavi, general secretary of Cosatu, said that while the discussions showed that changes had to be made, they had just “opened the can” without resolving any issues.

Manuel said the discussions took place against the backdrop of the current strike by Cosatu.

“We have to find solutions to the strike—it can’t just go on and on, we need to solve the problem,” said Vavi.

“We have got to show workers something,” he added, noting that the impact of inflation was one of the issues that had been discussed.

“We want to open doors and see what the possibilities are,” Vavi added.

“We found if you touch one button, you have four to five others.”

Manuel said that while the discussions did not touch on CPIX and inflation, all countries reweighted their index every few years.

Vavi, though, noted that when it came to “opening the can”, inflation had numerous impacts—for instance in the food production sector, it flowed through to salaries and prices, and also competition.

“We have to give sufficient attention to the scale of unemployment in our country,” said Manuel.

Deputy Finance Minister Jabu Moleketi said it was a meeting of South Africans to resolve the socioeconomic challenges of the country.

Manuel added that that numerous other government departments would be drawn into the discussions to resolve the issues.

However, no specific date was given as to when these discussions would take place, but Manuel said the issues raised at the meeting would need to be worked through. - I-Net Bridge