Cosatu state of the nation address 08-02-08 |
COSATU Statement on the State of the Nation Address
COSATU welcomes the way President Mbeki’s State of the Nation Address sets out key the collective challenges facing us and how society should respond to them. By definition the State of the Nation Address sets out broad priorities; details are spelt out in departmental programmes or in the budget speech. COSATU therefore reserves its right to respond in more detail to the forthcoming pronouncements by ministers and the budget speech.
COSATU is keen to understand whether the State of the Nation Address meets our expectations in relation to a number of issues and to what extent it takes forward the resolutions of the ANC 52nd Conference in Polokwane. In particular, we were keen to understand how government will tackle the twin task of addressing poverty and unemployment.
In broad terms the President is correct to underline that the momentary challenges do not suggest a society on the precipice. However we will urge that the spirit of ‘business unusual’ must also be informed by the rising inequality in our society. If we proceed on the current trajectory we are likely to miss the employment and poverty reduction targets, even if the growth targets have been largely met.
Therefore all our policies and strategies must be interrogated in terms of their overall contribution to meeting these targets. A sense of national urgency should also extend to how we tackle poverty and unemployment as interlinked processes. We not only confront the challenge to accelerate implementation of existing policies; it is also imperative that we examine such policies in terms of how they assist or hinder progress. In any event the ANC Conference has proposed new sets of policies and the President himself articulates important new policies in his address.
Role of Social Dialogue
The President has also correctly pointed out that mass mobilisation and the involvement of organised formations is pivotal to supporting the efforts of the state to tackle the multiple challenges facing us. This will go a long way in redefining state-society relations from one of mistrust and distance to one of partnership. However, we caution that this should not be exclusionary by privileging powerful vested interests or by-passing the Alliance or social dialogue forums such as NEDLAC.
The Economy
The President articulated key programmes to support growth and further industrialisation of South Africa. In principle, COSATU supports the broad thrust of his industrialisation strategy and emphasises the need to prioritise labour-intensive industries or those industries that have the capacity to generate mass employment. We welcome the expansion of the Expanded Public Works Programme, which makes an important contribution by providing short-term employment. However the EPWP is an insufficient as a response to the structural unemployment facing our society. What we need is a coordinated development strategy that synchronises industrial and trade policy with the macro-economic policy. Going forward, COSATU welcomes the proposal for sectoral engagement to discuss the details of sector strategies.
Energy
The Address comes at a time when our country has been plunged into darkness by recent load shedding, which underscores the dire energy crisis we face. COSATU welcomes the apology offered by the President for the current energy crisis. We agree that this provides an opportunity to develop imaginative programmes to conserve energy and diversify our energy sources, including using renewable energy sources. The challenge going forward is not only to bring on-stream more coal-fired stations but also to invest more heavily than has been the case in renewable energy, which will not only increase energy supplies but also has the potential to create employment. This electricity problem must awaken the country to a reality of putting as a priority on the national agenda the issue regarding renewable energy sources. Government renewable energy programmes are currently below the scale required to shift from coal.
Having said that, we note with concern that the President did not discuss job security in the context of this energy crisis, to reassure the millions of workers who remain uncertain about their job security during this period.
The dire warning that the ‘era of cheap electricity is over’, whilst important, must not translate into high electricity prices for the poor. In fact it requires a review of the pricing of energy for industry and households. For many years households have paid more per kWh than industry, and it is time that South Africa considered progressive pricing of electricity. Government must also interrogate the approval of new projects, especially energy-intensive projects like the mooted aluminium smelters.
Furthermore, this must not translate in slowing down the electrification programme in poor and rural areas, to ensure universal access.
Anti-poverty strategy
The idea of an anti-poverty war, belated as it may be, is a welcome development. But the speech did not acknowledge that the high levels of unemployment are by far the biggest cause of poverty. Existing programmes are insufficient, poorly coordinated and or at best palliative. They only serve to alleviate poverty and do not form the basis for removing people out of poverty on a sustainable level. While the details are still sketchy we welcome the following:
· The establishment of a government machinery and a ‘war room’ to fight against poverty. At the very least it must ensure a coordinated and comprehensive response by government to the poverty challenge.
· The acceleration of land and agrarian reform, which is important in our rural development strategy, to overcome the spatial inequalities of apartheid. In this regard, the prioritisation of areas with large concentrations of farm dwellers with high eviction rates is an important development that we welcome. Farm workers continue to face victimisation and evictions from farm owners, and government has been tardy to ameliorate the situation of farm dwellers.
The State
The President has attended to key issues that are important in the task of building the development state. They range from improving coordination within the state at all levels - the capacity of the state to implement; filling of vacancies within six months - to performance by senior management. COSATU welcomes the Public Sector Summit as an important forum to discuss the transformation of the state and build its capacity to fulfil its development role. The summit must also focus on the role of the state in employment creation and prioritise resource allocation at the coalface of the public service, namely the police, health, education and home affairs. In addition, this must be accompanied by a strategy to improving working conditions and progressive industrial relations within the state sector.
Social security reform
COSATU welcomes government’s intention to review the situation of children above the age of 14 years. Historically, we have argued that the current system of social grants has substantial gaps, as it does not cover children and youth above 14 and adults between 18 and 60 years of age. We warmly welcome the gender parity in the retirement age which will ameliorate the situation for millions of poor old men. It is in this context that we have called for a basic income grant and this must form part of the discussion about poverty reduction and interventions aimed at children above the age of 14 years.
While government has tabled proposals to deal extensively with retirement industry reform, we still await a meaningful engagement on this matter. This is long overdue and we now require clear time frames for implementation
HIV and AIDS
COSATU has supported government’s adoption of a comprehensive plan to confront HIV and AIDS. We however wish to emphasise that this strategy will not succeed unless adequate resources, as calculated by government or independent groups, are allocated to the programme. We also welcome the emphasis on dealing with tuberculosis.
International
Whilst we welcome the President’s mention of the crises elsewhere in the world, we remain concerned about his complete disregard of the situation in Swaziland. Even with Zimbabwe he disregarded the absence of favourable conditions for free and free elections. The manner in which the speech dealt with international relations reinforced a mistaken notion that we only intervene or focus on areas where there is conflict