OWN CORRESPONDENT and REUTERS, Johannesburg | Monday
PRESIDENT Thabo Mbeki has played down tensions between labour federation Cosatu and the ruling African National Congress (ANC) in the opening address at Cosatu’s annual congress, where ”serious policy differences” between government and the unions are expected to emerge.
Addressing the delegates in Midrand, he instead joked about media reports that a major reshuffle of his cabinet was on the cards and that ”comrade premiers, comrade cabinet ministers and all sorts of people” would be redeployed.
Mbeki also announced that Cabinet had decided that poor families would not pay for the first 6000 litres of water they used a month.
Organisers say the congress will tackle various bugbears for the nation’s economy, including high unemployment and sluggish foreign investment.
But analysts believe the meeting will turn into a platform for the federation to analyse the ANC government’s economic and social policies.
It broadly coincides with plans for a fresh strike by the nation’s biggest state employee union – the 240000-strong National Health Education and Allied Workers Union (NEHAWU) – over demands for more pay and better conditions.
Central to workers’ worries are the government’s plans to speed up privatisation and liberalise labour laws, along with its business-friendly macro-economic strategy, and its controversial stand on HIV/AIDS.
COSATU and its communist allies have become increasingly angry with the government’s four-year-old Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) strategy, which aims to boost growth by curbing spending and bringing inflation down.
They feel that its policies are responsible for the loss of nearly a million jobs since South Africa opened up its economy to global competition with the demise of apartheid in 1994.
The alliance is also critical of the growing centralisation of power and decision-making within the government, and its reluctance to acknowledge a link between the HIV virus and AIDS, which is seen as the main threat to the country’s economy.
Another key issue is the plan by Mbeki’s government to restructure key state enterprises by 2004, generating at least R40bn over the coming three years.
It has pledged to relax labour laws in line with business demands for policies to lure foreign investment.
But COSATU and its allies say the moves could bleed jobs, exacerbating unemployment, which affects an estimated third of South Africa’s 15 million workforce. – Reuters