The Congress of 
South African Trade Unions has noted with deep concern the announcement by president Ramaphosa that his administration has decided to dismantle Transnet by breaking out the Transnet National Ports Authority (TNPA) into an independent subsidiary.
The Federation views this decision to implement the National Ports Act of 2005 with suspicion and scepticism because it is not in line with the vision of the Alliance and the ANC Manifesto. This new method of unbundling SOEs has not been properly canvassed with relevant stakeholders and is at odds with the commitment to a developmental, interventionist state.
This is deeply disturbing because this decision was unilaterally taken without broad and comprehensive consultation of stakeholders and unions in particular. It has become a habit for this administration to clandestinely take drastic decisions about State-Owned Companies without engaging unions or other social partners.
The privatisation of South African Airways and this dismantlement and fragmentation of Transnet have been decided without unions being properly engaged. This follows in the footsteps of massive retrenchments at SABC that took place despite strong objections from labour.
This raises the question of whose vision is being pursued by these unilateral decisions and where does this mandate come from considering that even at a political level, there has not been any discussions about these decisions.
This so called “reform” of the SOEs occurs in an environment where this government has made it very clear that it is not interested in the state intervention in the economy. Over the last two years, there has been a fixation with rolling back the state’s role in the economy, trim down the state and open doors for the private sector to take over.
The current government policy outlook is that the state’s main task in economic and social development is to minimise impediments and maximise inducements to private capital accumulation. Privatisation, commercialisation, and deregulation have become the watchwords of those promoting this vision of public sector reform in South Africa.
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For more information:
Sizwe Pamla
COSATU
Tel: +27 011 339 4911