ELLIS MNYANDU, Johannesburg | Sunday
THE Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), a coalition partner in the ANC-led South African government, has asked the government to prioritise job creation in its spending plans even if it means slashing defence budgets.
”After all, virtually every survey shows that our people see joblessness as the single most important challenge facing our country,” Zwelinzima Vavi, secretary general of the 1.8m-strong Cosatu told the Nedlac annual summit.
”So maybe we should spend more on creating employment, even if it leaves less for defence,” Vavi said.
He was addressing the summit on behalf of the labour caucus within the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) – a grouping formed in 1995 to join government, business, labour and wider community in seeking consensus on labour and economic legislation.
Vavi said government, labour, business and the wider community, needed to formulate a cohesive approach to solving the country’s chronic unemployment, many consider to be at crisis proportions.
Joblessness is currently reported to affect a third of South Africa’s 15m-strong economically active population.
Labour analysts estimate that 500 000 jobs have been lost in the country since 1994, when the ANC won power and opened South Africa’s post-apartheid economy to global competition.
But Vavi’s remarks marked another stab in the government’s side following a series of recent attacks by labour on the state’s macro-economic policies, particularly GEAR, which they say is bleeding jobs through privatisation and tighter spending.
The four-year-old Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) strategy is the government’s macro-economic framework which aims, among other objectives, to cut the budget deficit by putting a tight rein on government finances. – Reuters