Johannesburg - The mandate of the SA Reserve Bank (Sarb) should be changed, the
Federation of Unions of SA (Fedusa) said on Tuesday.
The reasons for the change would be to focus on creating decent
work and improving economic growth as well as creating a
competitive exchange rate, Fedusa's general secretary Dennis George
said in a statement.
"Many central banks across the globe no longer consider
employment creation as part of their mandate.
"Yet limiting monetary policy solely to price stabilisation
cannot guarantee that economic growth will improve since low
inflation does not necessarily lead to high and stable economic
growth," he said.
He added that it was vital for Fedusa to place employment at the
centre of economic and social policies.
"Nobody wants rampant inflation but there is a case to be made
to balance the effect on employment with interest rate cuts."
George said the strong rand was choking SA's exports which had
resulted in massive unemployment in local manufacturing industries.
Turning to industrial policy, George added that South Africa now had the
opportunity to implement a policy that emphasised manufacturing and
services.
"The manufacturing and services sectors can play an important
part of placing our economy on a growth path to create quality
employment for all."
These sectors included capital-transport equipment
manufacturing, beneficiation of metals and raw materials,
automotive and components sectors; chemicals, plastics,
pharmaceuticals, forestry, pulp, printing, paper, leather,
footwear, clothing, textiles and furniture.
George said the manufacturing sectors had proved to be very
labour intensive.
He added that government should provide more support for the
creation of "green jobs" so as to make provision for one million
solar water heaters by 2014.
Fedusa also believed that the role of state owned enterprises,
public utilities and development finance institutions should be
evaluated by the National Planning Commission and the Monitoring
and Evaluation Commission.
The purpose of the evaluation would be to ensure that these
organisations' strategic priorities were focused on the creation of
decent work as well as the country's development goals.
"There has been a tendency for these boards to focus more on
corporatisation instead of decent employment opportunities that
have been destroyed by the encouragement of practices such as
outsourcing, subcontracting and casualisation to support Black
Economic Empowerment."
George said Fedusa supported the call made by President Jacob
Zuma in his first State of the Nation Address that decent work
should be at the core of the country's investment and economic
policies.
- Sapa