COSATU+on+the+2006+State+of+the+Nation+Speech



=State of the Nation Speech=


 * Comment by COSATU**

The Congress of South African Trade Unions has taken note of the State of the Nation speech delivered by our President Thabo Mbeki at the joint sitting of Parliament today.

Whilst we agree with him about the major advances that our country and people have made from its ugly past, as a result of many government interventions, we however want to draw the president’s and country’s attention to the need to ensure that benefits of economic transformation accrues to all, especially the workers and the unemployed.

Our country’s principal challenge remains the extremely high levels of unemployment, the destruction of quality jobs and their replacement by temporary, casual jobs, a phenomenon that has led to the growing number of working poor. A large numbers remain trapped in poverty and there is growing inequality between the rich and the poor.

The president’s intervention, through the Accelerated Shared Growth Initiative (ASGISA), is a recognition that the past 12 years of democracy have not led to shared growth. This underlines COSATU’s point that the benefits of the first decade of democracy accrued disproportionately to the rich, mainly white, elite, the middle class and a small number of BEE tycoons, while the majority of the people still live with unemployment, poverty and Aids.

So COSATU is committed to work with the government to ensure that this new initiative, which identifies the need to share the economic benefits, does indeed lead to shared growth. Unless it is improved, however, it will not lead to the fulfilment of the government’s objectives, and we want to ensure that it does.

So COSATU welcomes the opportunity for further engagement with government on ASGISA and hopes that it will lead to more comprehensive proposals than those so far released by government, which must be aimed not only at accelerating growth, but urgently prioritising redistribution, to make the second decade of democracy one which benefits workers and the poor at the economic level.

COSATU accepts that the ASGISA is not a comprehensive development strategy centred in a coherent industrial strategy, which is what for many years we have been calling for. We understand that ASGISA is a limited measure, designed to make targeted interventions to grow our economy to 6% whilst ensuring that benefits are shared by all.

COSATU insists that a more comprehensive response to the deficiencies of our economy, some of which identified in ASGISA, must be developed as a matter or urgency, if we are to succeed in ensuring more redistribution. We fear that now that this limited programme has been announced, government and the country may convince itself that everything has been done to transform our economy. This will be a fatal mistake. ASGISA on its own and without a comprehensive industrial strategy and other elements which we outline below will not lead to real shared growth.

It is in this context that we welcome’s the President’s assurance that the trade union movement will be engaged to ensure that the lacking key elements to a comprehensive and development path are put together in the near future.

In summary COSATU is calling for ASGISA to be a comprehensive, coherent economic strategy to place us on a new development path that will not only grow the economy by at least 6% a year, but create quality jobs and redistribute the nation’s wealth. We cannot support a strategy if it only delivers growth for a rich minority but pain and misery for the core constituency of the ANC and its allies. ASGISA must be a concrete programme, with policy tools designed to achieve these objectives.

Specific polices we want to see include:
 * Activities that create quality jobs to be the core components of economic strategy
 * An end to the explosion of casualisation and subsequent drop in the quality of jobs
 * Major expansion of agrarian reform, especially in the former ‘homeland’ areas
 * Massive investment in infrastructure, housing, transport and health services
 * A drive to expand and improve education and skills development
 * A more aggressive, expansionist fiscal policy
 * A strong developmental state to drive economic policy.

We propose a number of interventions and policy approaches to achieve these objectives.

We welcome the President’s emphasis on skills development and share his concern at the low levels of apprenticeships and the numbers of skilled workers. We shall work with JIPSA, which aims to respond to the skills challenge but are concerned that this initiative should not become a parallel body to the SETAs and undermine the work that they are doing. We also demand that business plays a far bigger role in skills development and does not rely on importing skills.

We share the President’s belief that one of the constraints to growth and development is “the limited domestic market”, which simply means the high levels of poverty which keep millions of South Africans on the margins of the market economy. That is why COSATU has consistently argued that reducing poverty will not slow down economic growth but expand it, as more and more citizens become consumers. That is one of the main arguments for the Basic Income Grant, which, as well its humanitarian purpose, will boost economic activity in the poorest communities, and for other economic interventions specifically aimed at unleashing the economic potential of historically marginalised communities.

COSATU notes the President’s announcement that “we have already reached agreement with the People’s Republic of China to protect our clothing and textile sector”. While we would welcome any measure that would stem the massive loss of jobs in this sector, COSATU will need to examine this agreement very carefully to ensure that it does not concede more to China than it wins for South Africa. We reiterate the demand for the full implementation of safeguards and other protective measures allowed for by the World Trade Organisation in order to save these vital industries.

COSATU has been briefed on draft proposal for government’s new industrial policy. We intend meeting with the Minister of Trade and Industry on an urgent basis to ensure a meaningful engagement on this critical issue. Our overriding strategic objective is to secure an industrial policy whose central thrust is the creation of quality jobs, and the progressive eradication of unemployment.

COSATU notes the proposals on land and housing. We have argued strongly for a drastic speed-up of land reform and the full implementation of all the resolutions of the Land Summit. We hope that the president’s more cautious words on this issue will be developed into a clear strategy to put an end to the injustices of the apartheid land robbery. We will further engage in a discussion with the Minister of Housing to support the stated goal of making land and housing available close to the economic centres for working class families, and to explore ways to advance this objective.

We welcome the president’s report that “over 100 000” patients are receiving antiretroviral treatment for HIV/Aids, which, if true, is a big increase on any previously reported figures, and will need to be checked. This should not however lead to any complacency on what still remains a national catastrophe.

COSATU will continue to work with government to help achieve the goals set out by the President today. But these goals must be converted into real, substantial and speedy improvements in the lives of workers and the poor.

1-5 Leyds Cnr Biccard Streets, Braamfontein, 2017
 * Patrick Craven (Editor, Shopsteward Journal), Congress of South African Trade Unions,

P.O.Box 1019, Johannesburg, 2000, South Africa

Tel: +27 11 339-4911/24, Fax: +27 11 339-5080/6940, E-Mail: patrick@cosatu.org.za**

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