The IMF reformist agenda is detrimental to a developmental agenda

Response to the IMF's advice to South Africa to reduce public wage growth as captured in the Business Day on 12/12/2014

The South African Democratic Teachers Union (SADTU) has noted with disgust the attack by the IMF on the Public Servants of South Africa by blackmailing government to cut the Wage Bill (see BDlive article and full IMF report here - PDF).

The Public Servants are not the enemy of the state, but rather the IMF Capitalist policies, mismanagement in various government departments, corrupt officials manipulating procurement processes to inflate prices to enrich their companies, are enemies of the state, and particularly the tenderization of the State where business inflates prices ten times when quoting the State.

The government is losing billions of Rands through these tenders, where money goes to profit - driven business. Shifting the focus by the IMF is not the solution.

The Public Servants need a conducive working environment, motivation and decent wages. The State needs these public servants to deliver services to our people. The IMF doesn't care about the people who are served by the public servants such as doctors, nurses and teachers who leave the country to work abroad.

The IMF is a representative of the heartless business that is corrupting the bureaucrats by inflating prices.

The lack of progress in addressing the Grade R conditions of service cannot be blamed on the Public Servants' wage bill. The government must conclude negotiations on the Early Childhood Development conditions of service to improve the quality of education. This will form a strong basis for economic growth.

The government must deal with corruption in the public and private sector so that the country can allocate money for infrastructure and the employment of the young people of our country.

We must refuse the reformist agenda of the IMF, because evidence available is that countries that ignore IMF are successful and continue to have positive economic growth. The one-size-fits-all prescriptions of the IMF and its sister organisations will have detrimental effects in the developing economy of our country.

Labour will resist this agenda with everything we have.

The reformist agenda is profit-driven and this cannot form part of the developmental state agenda our country has adopted moving forward.

Statement issued by SADTU, December 14 2014

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