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Fin24 reports that amid growing resistance to a social compact, the government has doubled down on the need for it at the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) summit held on Friday.
At the start of the year, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced plans for a new social compact, in order to get agreement from labour, business and civil society about the interventions needed to turn the economy around and create millions of jobs. Over past months, the ministers of employment and labour, trade, industry and competition and finance have been meeting with social partners to shape the new social compact. But there has been much criticism about whether a new compact is needed, given the scepticism about how effective it will be in the face of SA’s urgent problems. Business Leadership SA CEO Busisiwe Mavuso recently said: "I don't know what more we need to be socially compacting on. This is the seventh social compact we are entering as a country … we haven't even delivered a fraction of the commitments we made in the last social compact." At Nedlac last week, Minister of Employment and Labour Thulas Nxesi stated: "Those who say social compact has failed are wrong. Totally wrong… We are dealing with human beings. We are dealing with differing interests, and we have to negotiate all those issues." He admitted that it had not been easy for the stakeholders to find common ground on some issues. Cas Coovadia, CEO of Business Unity SA, said Nedlac could not afford to continue with the old way of negotiating issues for years on end and it had to move with greater efficiency when discussing issues to urgently find outcomes.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Londiwe Buthelezi at Fin24 (subscriber access only)
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