EFF STATEMENT ON GENERAL MOTORS' DISINVESTMENT FROM SOUTH AFRICA

Friday, May 19, 2017

The EFF is in no shock to learn of General Motors' decision to disinvest from South Africa. It is one of many USA companies that will close shop in foreign lands to go back home and comply with protectionist policies of Donald Trump. This will lead to loss of thousands of jobs domestically and increase the already high unemployment rate.

The EFF has long called on South Africa to build internal industrial capacity and not rely on foreign investments who just leave us when they deem fit. The automotive support program in South Africa is one of the best and most generous in the world, and yet we are still faced with divestments like General Motors. 

A permanent solution is to build our own automotive industry, subsidise it, and provide it with a solid market through government budget and offtake. Not only will this be a permanent solution for broadening our own mass based production and creating a solid market, but it will be a permanent solution in creating sustainable jobs and the overall development of our country.

Failure to build our own automotive industry will result in even more job losses and the destabilising of the entire automotive industry. This will soon have a ripple effect on other industries in which the government of the ANC has failed to develop and prioritise internal capacity.

It must worry us, as a country, living in a high-tech industrial age that we do not produce our own automobiles. So much of our economy depends on automobiles; yet our state has done invested in the materialization of sovereignty in the automobile industry. This is also the case in essential technologies like mobile phones, televisions, household appliances. 

The sooner we locally produce the majority of the good we consume, the faster we get to sustainable solution to high unemployment, poverty and inequality.

Statement issued by the Economic Freedom Fighters, 19 May 2017