I found John Dludlu’s most recent column confusing (“Amsa should become a pan-African company driving industrialisation”, September 10). After a potted history of how ArcelorMittal SA (Amsa) became a basket case, he goes on to reimagine it as a multi-state-owned African behemoth whose mission it is to industrialise Africa.
It matters not how much more taxpayers’ money government wastes on Amsa. It has, like Monty Python’s famous parrot, expired from a toxic mixture of senile decrepitude, excessive electricity costs and a bumbling freight system.
Instead of further embalming its corpse with high import tariffs on primary steel, it must be buried, freeing up steel fabricators to buy at best advantage and compete with imported steel products.
China has come a long way since its initial catastrophic flirtation with steelmaking in the late 1950s. Enormous economies of scale, coupled with falling energy costs and soft loans, have made it invincible for now. Any idea that such an African initiative could succeed in a global industry where even the once-mighty US Steel has failed is patently absurd.
Can we just ditch grandiose visions and save what’s left of our steel fabrication industry? Or is our government hell-bent on increasing the current unemployment tsunami?
James Cunningham
Camps Bay
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