Picture File: Cosatu members and supporters march to the Minerals Council South Africa offices in Marshalltown. Picture: Gallo Images/Alet Pretorius
Cosatu, an alliance partner of the governing ANC, expressed concern that nearly five years after the governing party’s 2017 Nasrec conference, progress in implementing its economic resolutions has been too slow.
Cosatu says key elements of South Africa’s economic policy “which are out of kilter with Nasrec, remain in place and are being entrenched by centres of power in the state which remain committed to pre-Nasrec perspectives, particularly by Treasury”.
The labour union federation made the remarks on Wednesday in a statement after the three-day meeting of its central executive committee (CEC) this week.
With the ANC set to go to the conference later this year, Cosatu said it remained disappointed that President Cyril Ramaphosa’s government had not adopted a far-reaching programme to transform the economy in favour of the working people and the poor.
Cosatu’s national spokesperson Sizwe Pamla said even the universally supported Economic Recovery and Reconstruction Plan – tabled in Parliament by Ramaphosa in October 2020 – and the 15 industrial sectoral master plans had not received adequate funding and full political support.
The CEC meeting noted Ramaphosa’s statement on building a developmental state during his State of the Nation Address (Sona) two weeks ago.
However, a developmental state cannot be built on the foundations of “neoliberal policies”, Cosatu said in reference to Ramaphosa’s remarks that it’s not the responsibility of government to create jobs, but the private sector.
“The federation raised concerns that the existing dominant market-driven logic in the state continues to retard realisation of the vision of a developmental state.
“Even progressive elements of the new administration’s agenda remain relatively timid when it comes to questions such as direct state intervention in the economy, state economic ownership, action against monopolies etc.”
Cosatu said the current socio-economic situation in South Africa called for more boldness that is currently not evident in government’s policy announcements.
“Without the willingness to act decisively to advance the developmental state vision, discussions of this matter will remain at the level of empty rhetoric,” Cosatu said.
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“We are concerned both about the coherence of the approach with regards to government economic development, as well as the philosophical perspective informing this development. Arguing that the private sector knows best despite the evidence to the contrary is sowing confusion.”
The federation said the idea of a developmental state hinged on the state playing a key role in the economy as well as intervening to channel the operations of the private sector into a developmental agenda.
“The exaggerated fear of alienating capital has meant that government has adopted the posture of ‘enabler’, and at best ‘regulator’, to provide the space for capital to operate.
“Because the posture prevents the state from transforming the environment, this results in capital reproducing essentially the same relations of exploitation and domination inherited from apartheid-era; where these relations have shifted, they have obviously endeavoured to reproduce them on favourable terms under the new conditions.”
Cosatu said it also remained “perturbed” by the lack of appetite and political will to investigate and prosecute private sector corruption.
It said the private sector was responsible for the economic mess that the country found itself in.
“The CEC declared a campaign to champion the whistleblowing campaign across all sectors of the economy and demand more action against the killing of those who oppose corruption and maladministration.”
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