Cosatu condemns increase in interest rates 16-08-07

 

COSATU condemns increase in interest rates

COSATU is appalled that the Reserve Bank has today announced yet another increase in interest rates, by 0,5%, bringing the total increase over the past 12 months to 2,5%.

This decision will increase the misery of the unemployed and throw even more South Africans into poverty. The relentless rise in the cost of basic foods and other essentials is already devastating the lives of the poor. Now they face the added burden of higher costs for housing and loan repayments.

The increased cost of borrowing capital to set up new businesses will slow down the already too low levels of new investment and make it harder for people to create jobs.

The workers' demands for higher wages in all the recent strikes are more than ever justified by this latest assault on the living standards of workers and the poor.

The fundamental mistake the Reserve Bank keep making is to fail to identify high levels of unemployment and poverty, rather than inflation, as the key challenges facing the country. Every policy decision should be judged by how far it helps to achieve the government's ASGI-SA targets of halving unemployment and poverty by 2014.

Instead the Reserve Bank uses the threat of 'inflation' and 'excessive borrowing' to justify conservative monetary policies which pander to the interests of the very same business people who keep awarding themselves massive increases way above the level of inflation, yet demand that the workers and the poor must pay the price for their extravagance.

Patrick Craven (National Spokesperson)

Congress of South African Trade Unions

1-5 Leyds Cnr Biccard Streets

Braamfontein, 2017

P.O. Box 1019

Johannesburg, 2000

SOUTH AFRICA

Tel: +27 11 339-4911/24

Fax: +27 11 339-5080/6940/ 086 603 9667

Cell: 0828217456