The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) is gearing up for battle with the ruling African National Congress over the privatisation of state assets and the government’s HIV/Aids treatment plan as they decide on the agenda of the Growth and Development Summit.
Cosatu has said it will insist the treatment plan and privatisation be included in the agenda of the summit, expected to be held in May.
But the ANC said this week it was unlikely to accept the two items on the agenda. ANC spokesperson Smuts Ngonyama said the summit could not be treated as a ”bargaining platform”. He said the ”restructuring of state assets and government’s HIV/Aids programme” have been dealt with at length on ”a number of occasions”.
The alliance partners — the ANC, Cosatu and the South African Communist Party — had agreed on a position on the two issues at the ANC national conference in December, he said.
Cosatu representative Patrick Craven said talks on the summit agenda were continuing. He declined to comment on Ngonyama’s reaction.
Labour insiders said that at meetings at the end of March Cosatu officials had felt the treatment plan must be included in the agenda as the National Economic Development and Labour Council was convening the summit and had formulated the plan.
Cosatu believes HIV/Aids impedes growth and development because the pandemic is rapidly eroding the working population.
Cosatu told Minister of Labour Membathisi Mdladlana in the third week of March that the government had to draw up a position on privatisation of state assets and HIV/Aids before the summit, and that Cosatu’s positions on the issues differ from the government’s.
”We hope these differences will be addressed before the growth summit takes place,” Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said after the executive committee meeting in the third week of March.
The government wants a slim agenda targeting price stability, investment, job creation, social equity and black economic empowerment.