Labour federation Cosatu has criticised the government and the business sector for moving slowly to implement the economic recovery and reconstruction plan, and called for decisive action to address SA’s stubborn socioeconomic challenges.
President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the plan in October 2020, which hinges on an expanded public employment programme, a R1-trillion infrastructure effort mostly leveraged from the private sector, a pledge to accelerate energy generation, and a raft of structural economic reforms.
The SA economy has been battered by the global Covid-19 pandemic, contracting 7% in 2020, and resulting in the loss of more than 1.4-million jobs as businesses shut their doors during the lockdowns imposed to combat the spread of coronavirus.
Briefing the media in Johannesburg on Thursday, following its three-day central executive committee (CEC) meeting, Cosatu general secretary Bheki Ntshalintshali said the labour federation, a key ally of the governing ANC, was “worried about the slow pace” that the government and business are moving to implement their commitments under the economic recovery plan.
“We have a 40% unemployment rate, private sector companies are closing, and state-owned enterprises are imploding,” Ntshalintshali said. “Decisive action is needed to arrest this situation.”
The CEC called on the private sector to stop making excuses and employing delaying tactics “when it comes to local procurement”, which would help boost the economy, which the SA Reserve Bank expects to expand 3.8% in 2021.
The labour federation, said Ntshalintshali, was working to ensure that unions, economic sectors, pension and investment funds all become “active and decisive champions of local procurement”.
“We plan to submit monthly reports on this at Nedlac [National Economic Development and Labour Council] to prove this commitment,” he said. Nedlac is a social dialogue platform set up for the government, business, labour and community stakeholders to discuss and agree on the country’s economic direction.
Delivering the keynote address at the Proudly South African summit and expo 2021 on March 9, Ramaphosa said it was not enough to “preach” the buy local message: “We need to practice it. As government, as state-owned enterprises, as businesses, as individuals and as leaders, we need to set an example.”
The stakeholders needed to demonstrate that buying local was about investing in quality, in sustaining local businesses, and in keeping jobs at home, he said.
“It is for all of these reasons that localisation and local procurement is essential. In their respective commitments at the 2018 Jobs Summit and in their engagement in 2020 on our national recovery plan, all social partners have dedicated themselves to this task,” Ramaphosa said.
“There is an express undertaking to increase local procurement over the next five years.”
The Cosatu CEC also threw its weight behind the ongoing public sector wage talks, saying it hoped the negotiations would result in a “settlement to avert a possible strike”.
“But unions should continue to mobilise for any eventuality and remain battle ready,” said Ntshalintshali.
“The meeting called on the unions in the public service and in the private sector to increase their co-operation and partnerships, and not allow narrow disagreements and tactical differences to divide them,” he said.
“No union of federation can take forward the current struggles alone, we all need to co-ordinate, and formulate relations with other workers in SA and around the world.”
The public service unions are demanding a wage increase of the consumer price index (CPI) plus 4% across the board for 2021/2022 — above the 3.2% inflation rate recorded in March and also higher than the 4.3% average the Reserve Bank expects for 2021.
This week, the government offered public servants the standard 1.5% “pay progression” increase automatically due to all public servants, and a cash gratuity of nearly R1,000 in its latest offer to unions in wage talks.
However, the government has refused to budge on the bigger question of a cost-of-living wage increase, which it still says is frozen at zero.
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