ELLIS MNYANDU AND OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Monday
GOVERNMENT is unlikely to overhaul its business blueprint in spite of threats by South Africa’s giant labour union federation Cosatu to strike to force changes to the country’s key policies, say analysts.
Cosatu and the SA Communist Party had grumbled this week at Cosatu’s annual congress that they felt as though their participation in the ruling tripartite alliance had been reduced to rubber stamping African National Congress (ANC) policies.
But economists and political analysts say the alliance is bound to suffer natural tension as its leaders pander to different constituencies.
If the 1.8m strong Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) carries through with its threat of a week-long strike it will be the first general industrial stoppage in post-apartheid South Africa since 1994.
At the congress, Cosatu and the SACP vented their fury over government’s labour and Aids policies, yet pledged support to back the ANC in the November local government elections.
At the heart of their discontent is the government’s six-year-old Growth, Employment and Redistribution (Gear) strategy. Gear’s aims include cutting the bugdet deficit through tighter government spending and higher interest rates.
Mbeki is unlikely to back down from Gear, which the government hopes will lure investors and create jobs.
“Government has been trying to send positive signals to investors and to reverse this would be a disaster,” said Shaun Mackay, a political analyst at the Centre for Policy Studies think-tank.
Jack Moore, an economist at Barclays Bank in London, said Cosatu’s complaints were part of an attempt to reposition itself for greater influence within the alliance.
“The government may make some concessions at the margins, but I don’t envisage a significant alteration in government policies,” he said. “The government is very resolute about its goals (of prudent fiscal and monetary policies).”
The government has also proposed a series of labour law amendments it says are in line with demands from business for policies to lure investors and cut chronic unemployment. About a third of the economically active population of 15 million is jobless.
“Macro-economic policy is not something that you can…carve segments out of and replace easily. So I doubt if there can be any concessions on that front,” said Tony Twine, an economist at Econometrix.