Outgoing Cosatu leader S’dumo Dlamini’s rejection of what he calls the “neoliberal tendencies” of President Ramaphosa (Mercury, September 17) needs to be seen within the context of Cosatu’s policy priorities for 2019.
Those priorities were published in Business Insider on September 12 and are thoroughly Marxist.
- They call for an end to the licensing of private hospitals and for the establishment of state-owned pharmaceutical companies.
- They demand that 50% of private retirement funds be invested in State-Owned Enterprises (like Eskom).
- That tax on companies be increased to 50%.
- That estate duty on all estates be increased to 50%.
- A total ban on scab labour during a strike and the total shutting down of any company hit by a strike.
- The establishment of a state bank to grant interest-free loans for women and township co-operatives.
- Punitive taxes on the export of capital and the repatriation of profits by foreign companies.
- Nationalisation of the Reserve Bank.
As they have in the past, Cosatu has indicated that it will not contest the 2019 election as a separate entity but will partner with the ANC. Unless Ramaphosa has tremendous reserves of political will to ignore the failed ideology which Cosatu promotes, South Africa can expect only further economic decline and failure should the ANC win the 2019 election.
Sent into The Mercury and published, 18 September 2018.
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