By Simon Nare
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) has welcomed President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) delivered at the Cape Town City Hall on Thursday night, noting progressive commitments in the speech.
The federation said although there had been notable efforts to stabilise state-owned enterprises more needed to be done and these SOE’s required competent management and the deployment of progressive turnaround plans with the necessary support from the state.
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COSATU highlighted the phasing out of load shedding and interventions to ensure electricity became affordable for consumers and the economy is expedited, the stabilisation and recovery of Transnet and Metro Rail over the past few years which have provided welcomed relief for thousands of jobs in mining, manufacturing and agricultural sectors, as some of the encouraging efforts.
“We remain deeply concerned by the state of key State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs), in particular Denel, the South African Broadcasting Corporation, the Post Office and Postbank,” said the federation.
It raised concerns also about the state of local government which the federation described as extremely worrying with 70% experiencing financial distress, municipal services deteriorating in both rural towns and cities, and many routinely failing to pay staff salaries and third-party deductions.
“An aggressive set of interventions is urgently needed to stabilise and capacitate embattled municipalities, including the finalisation of the White Paper and a new municipal financing model.
“An urgent plan of action is needed to tackle the water and sanitation crisis affecting many communities. This needs to include fixing and investing in water infrastructure, conservation, and recycling,” said COSATU.
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These interventions, said COSATU, could not be left to municipalities alone and the developmental finance institutions (DFIs) must be enlisted to help address the water infrastructure backlog.
The federation called on the government to drive a bold stimulus package from the fiscus to make capital accessible and affordable for small micro medium enterprises, infrastructure, industrial and export sectors to drive economic growth to the 3% plus needed to tackle unemployment.
“We cannot afford to continue to limp along 1% growth nor normalise 42.4% unemployment. Local procurement and labour must be at the heart of this drive. Efforts to expand trade opportunities and protect local industries and jobs must be accelerated,” it said.
The levels of crime, in particular violent and gender-based, corruption, infrastructure sabotage, gangs and syndicates are unacceptable and must be met with the full force of the state.
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