BusinessLive reports that Cosatu will hold discussions on economic policy with its political allies, the ANC and SACP, in the next two weeks, which will include identifying state assets that can be partially privatised.
On Monday, the trade union federation's spokesperson, Sizwe Pamla, dismissed a report in City Press that Cosatu had done a “180 degree turn” on its policy and now believed that state-owned entities (SOEs) should be privatised. “Cosatu has a resolution on privatisation that has not changed. It was always a strategic and nuanced position that in certain sectors — electricity, water, passenger rail, municipal services — there should be no privatisation. We must make sure, for example, that the Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa), which is used by eight-million working people, is not privatised. But that cannot be said about SAA, which does not have the same strategic role,” Pamla said. He indicated that at the next political council of the alliance (planned for the beginning of December) Cosatu was open to talking as part of a discussion on economic policy, nonstrategic SOEs or enterprises that required capital injection. Pamla added that Cosatu would entertain the case for a strategic equity partner for SAA, “but our conditions are that the state should remain a majority shareholder.”
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Carol Paton at BusinessLive
- Read too, SACP adopts wait-and-see approach after Cosatu's support for privatisation, at Independent News
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