COSATU responds to State of the Nation Address
The Congress of South African Trade Unions congratulates President Jacob Zuma on his 2012 State of the Nation Speech on 9 February.
We particularly welcome the ambitious plans for infrastructure development of roads, rail, ports and water, and the beneficiation strategy, which seeks to provide opportunities in the downstream part of the minerals sector.
If all these plans are fully implemented, they will play a major part in both creating jobs directly and laying the foundations for a modern, manufacturing-based economy, in line with the New Growth Path and Industrial Policy Actions Plans, which could create long-term, sustainable employment and make a big difference in achieving the target of five million jobs by 2020.
To succeed however, government must work to improve its capacity to drive this programme and address the inefficiencies of government. Government moves far too slowly and at times is dysfunctional and paralysed. Secondly government must address corruption and wastage. There is no doubt that tenderpreneurs will be hovering around hoping to make a kill and a quick buck from the R300 billion worth of infrastructure projects.
We would however caution against the emphasis on creating conditions to make it easier and cheaper for business to export minerals, which could conflict with the priority to promote industrialisation and beneficiation. A danger of this approach is that it will start a new mass movement by the rural poor to the new sites of development which will not be able to absorb the millions who are condemned to poverty in the rural areas.
There was not enough information on how this infrastructure development is going to improve people's standard of living, especially in rural areas. We are particularly disappointed that there was no single mention of the need to build an efficient, reliable, affordable, safe and accessible public transport system.
The fall in the official rate of joblessness from 25% to 23.9% and by the expanded definition, which includes discouraged work-seekers from 36% to 35.4%, is welcome, but we agree with the President that "we are not out of the woods yet, given the global economic situation". These levels are still completely unacceptable and it represents a catastrophe. We should not normalise a completely abnormal situation.
Whilst it is welcome news that there were more than 2500 applications to the Jobs Fund, with projects worth R8.4 billion approved, and R1.5 billion already approved to support firms, the triple challenges of unemployment, poverty and inequality persist.
We also welcome that, as in 2011, there was no reference to a youth wage subsidy, which the ANC NGC so decisively rejected in 2005.
We applaud the call for a presidential summit on infrastructure, and for a pact between all South Africans - including business, labour, municipalities, communities and all customers and suppliers - to ensure that Eskom and the electricity supply industry remain financially viable and sustainable and affordable, especially for the poor.
These proposals are in line with the thinking behind the accords which have already been signed on other crucial areas of the economy - basic education, green economy, skills development and local procurement, which are an excellent way of making policy-formulation and implementation a collective effort involving all South Africans.
The news that we have installed more than 220 000 solar geysers nationwide and have a target of one million solar geysers by 2014-2015 is very encouraging.
While rightly congratulating the country on the improved matric results and the doubling of Grade R enrolment, from 300 000 in 2003 to 705 000 in 2011, and acknowledging the unacceptable rate of drop out between grade 11 and grade 12, he did not go far enough in addressing the structural crisis in our public education service which led, for example, to the government's Section 100 1 (b) intervention in the Eastern Cape.
We also cannot ignore the fact that of the 923 463 children began Grade 1 in 2000, only 496 090 wrote matric in 2011. Nearly half dropped out of school along the way.
On land reform, the President admitted that we have only distributed 8% of the 30% target of land redistribution for 2014 and conceded that "the willing buyer- willing seller option has not been the best way to address this question". He did not however speak about the need to ensure that the land is utilised effectively so that we end the situation where 72% of the redistributed land is not utilised.
We note with interest that although the President conceded that abusive practices are ‘inherent' in labour broking, he refused to announce that it is to be banned, as COSATU is demanding; he only addressed the problem of how to stop such ‘inherent' abuses through regulation. COSATU insist that there can be no decent work under labour brokers.
COSATU applauds the 5% decline in crime, but on corruption, while appreciating the compliment to COSATU for establishing Corruption Watch, we were disappointed that the President failed to appreciate the depth and extent of this crisis.
If corruption is not rooted out it could jeopardise all the ambitions programme to develop our infrastructure, as corrupt tenderpreneurs move in to exploit new opportunities to get rich. The over-reliance on tenders and private investment, with no steps announced to build the dysfunctional state apparatus, could lead to the benefits once again only reaching an already wealthy minority.
We welcome the government programme on HIV and AIDS but would have liked the President to grab the opportunity with both hands to talk about ‘ABC' - abstain, be faithful and condomise - as the cornerstones of government's prevention programme.
We are also very pleased that government has finally addressed the problem of the category of workers who earn too much to receive government grants for RDP houses and too little to get bonds from the banks. Yesterday's announcement for a new subsidy and loan system directly addresses the core of COSATU members earning over R3500 but less than R7000 a month.
The federation welcomes the government efforts to honour our heritage and create memorials to struggle heroes but is disappointed that there was no mention of either COSATU or the SACP, nor the role of workers, in the history of our struggle for liberation.
Having said this we wish to emphasize that this state of a nation address still falls short of being an overarching development plan capable of fundamentally confronting the triple challenges and the legacy of apartheid and colonialism. There is inconsistency in aggressively taking forward the five job drivers of the government New Growth Path - infrastructure, manufacturing sector, green jobs, mining and agriculture.
Whilst we understand that the critical challenge of rural development will be addressed through the Rural Development Minister's Green Paper, we wish to emphasize that after this State of the Nation address, the rural masses and indeed the urban poor should be wondering whether they still form part of the priority as announced before.
The address does not outline how we will address the structural crisis of the education system to address both the leakages and the low quality. It does not outline beyond procurement and infrastructure projects how we will build manufacturing industry. We hope that in the Finance Minister's budget speech these details will emerge.
Issued by COSATU, February 10 2012
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