COSATU notes President Ramaphosa’s decision to move the country to lockdown level two
15 August 2020
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) notes President Cyril Ramaphosa’s decision to move the country to lock-down level two. We acknowledge the further reopening of more sectors of the economy and hope that more will be done to ensure that there is compliance with health and safety procedures and other protocols put in place to combat coronavirus. This further reopening of the economy will hopefully save jobs.
But reopening an already ailing economy without any drastic interventions, including the injection of new money into it is futile.
This lack of an economic stimulus by government amidst depressed private capital investment will continue to plunge and trap the economy into what is becoming a serial stagnation, characterised by episodes of technical recessions and rising unemployment rate.
It bears emphasising that our rising unemployment rate is already at a catastrophic scale, which loudly calls for a paradigm shift away from the Neoliberal macroeconomic straitjacket that gave us a recession even before COVID-19.