Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu has slammed Cosatu’s recent claim that nationalisation is a foregone conclusion in South Africa, saying that the ANC was “perfectly capable of speaking for itself” on the issue.
Speaking at the Cape Town Press Club on Thursday, Shabangu also questioned whether the nationalisation debate warranted such an intense focus, in the context of an ailing global economy.
“I have noticed that individuals within components of the congress alliance have expressed their own views on [nationalisation], with some even telling anyone who cares — or deigns to listen — that it is not a question of whether, but rather a question of when nationalisation will happen,” she said at a breakfast hosted by the Cape Town Press Club.
“As the ANC and the government we do not and cannot, and dare not speak on behalf of other components of the congress alliance as we — represent the multiplicity of classes and strata that make up a dominant part of the body politic of our country. We should certainly not do this outside the accepted lines of policy.”
Earlier this month the Mail & Guardian reported Cosatu economist Chris Malikane as saying that the ANC was not simply “researching the feasibility of nationalisation – it is researching models of implementation”.
Addressing the South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Malikane said that the task team set up by the ANC to investigate nationalisation was expected to advocate the formal adoption of nationalisation as policy.
Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi has also been widely reported to have called nationalisation a way out of a corrupt, capitalist economy, and a means to bolster economic development.
“The last time I checked the ANC was perfectly capable of speaking for itself,” Shabangu countered on Thursday. “Individuals have a right to lobby for their viewpoints within their individual organisations and within the congress alliance. However, it cannot be correct that these then project their own ideas as views of the ANC, an any issue, including the issue of nationalisation.”
Shabangu also said she was surprised the country was grappling with a debate about nationalisation, given the state of the global economy, where countries are “chasing investments to shore up their economies in a bid to drive growth and create sustainable jobs”.
She argued that a more constructive approach had been taken by entities such as the National Union of Mineworkers, who had tabled “radical and far-reaching alternatives to the nationalisation debate”.
These centred largely on improved transformation in the industry, to address challenges of racial inequality.
More focus was needed on developing youth; increasing the representation of women across various business sectors; more expansive employee share ownership schemes that provided “visible” benefits to workers; and greater support for former mineworkers debilitated by work-related diseases such as silicosis.
Shabangu stressed that the development of a mining sector came as a result of sustained long-term investment.
She pointed out that R400-billion was spent in the sector every year, returns to shareholders of R16-billion were made each year, with a further R15-billion paid to the fiscus as tax.