Team plans to cushion SA from crisis
Thématique :
sud afrique
A task team set up by President Kgalema Motlanthe, including government, business and labour, has agreed on a plan to cushion the effects of the global economic crisis.
But government representatives were thin on the detail of whether there would be state-supported bail-outs for companies or whether tariff barriers would be raised in certain sectors to prevent dumping of products.
Trade and industry director general Tsediso Matona, who said the government was meeting the automotive industry to look at ways to support it through the crisis, took pains to avoid the perception that South Africa would fight the markets being flooded with subsidised goods from Western countries with higher tariff barriers.
"As to which way tariffs are going to go, I can't tell you," he said.
Instead, existing measures to fight dumping - which were part of the existing international trade regime - would be employed, Matona said.
Trade and industry minister Mandisi Mpahlwa - flanked by Eskom chairman Bobby Godsell and trade unionist Ebrahim Patel - emphasised that the parties to the blueprint all agreed that the burden of the economic meltdown should "not unfairly be loaded on to poor people".
But he added that the intention was to ensure that the country was able to recover rapidly once the global environment improved.
"Business and industry is committed to doing everything to limit job losses."
While Mpahlwa said the infrastructure investment programme "should be maintained as far as possible", he noted that as South Africa approached the capital markets, money had "become more expensive".
This would make it more difficult for government to spend nearly R800 billion on infrastructure projects over the medium term. The figure of R787 billion announced in the recent budget by finance minister Trevor Manuel could be revised down.
"It may be R620 billion," said Mpahlwa. The full programme might have to be spread over more than three years.
Lulama Mare, a community representative at Nedlac, said plans were afoot to improve the distribution of food and the provision of food aid where required.
Nedlac is the negotiating forum for labour, business and the government and its chief executive, Herbert Mkhize, co-ordinated the task team that drew up the blueprint.
On whether the state would provide bridging finance for troubled private sector firms, Mpahlwa said the development finance institutions - allied to the department of trade and industry - would be "a lot more accommodating in dealing with companies".
