The Congress of South Africa Trade Unions (Cosatu) is engaging with the government and the African National Congress (ANC) to convince them to change to “a radically different macroeconomic strategy”, the labour federation’s general secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi, said in a speech prepared for delivery at a debate arranged by Barometer South Africa on Wednesday.
Barometer SA, an initiative created by wealth management company Citadel, is a forum that facilitates high-level interaction between business leaders and various key stakeholders in South Africa to discuss pertinent issues on politics, economics and general business.
Vavi said the radical macroeconomic strategy that Cosatu was proposing would be based on, among other things, lower interest rates, a weaker rand and more tariff protection for vulnerable industries.
“It [the proposed strategy] must also give a much bigger role to the state in directing investment into the sectors where jobs can be created,” Vavi added.
As the debate on the government’s new growth path (NGP) continued, Vavi said Cosatu had serious concerns about the achievability of the NGP’s longer-term targets.
One problem, he said, was the absence in both the NGP and the budget speech of any clear indication of how government departments would be equipped to implement the NGP proposals and to measure and monitor the targets.
Vavi called for a new growth path that sought to defeat high levels of unemployment, deepening poverty and growing inequality.
Cosatu called on government to also address, among other things, market dominance by conglomerates and the “equal” distribution of the means of production.
“Cosatu insists that our growth path must, in a comprehensive manner, seek to address these structural challenges facing the economy,” Vavi noted. — I-Net Bridge