Pretoria - The SA Reserve Bank is failing in its attempts at economic growth and development because of its pursuit of price stability, the National Union of Metalworkers (Numsa) said on Thursday.
Following a meeting with SARB governor Tito Mboweni in Pretoria, Numsa general secretary Irvin Jim said the meeting could not be concluded due to time constraints but that it had for the most part been "good".
He would not elaborate further only to say a controversial issue had cropped up.
"Obviously there has been a controversial issue of his [Mboweni's] failure to take our memorandum."
In May Numsa protested outside the bank's office in Pretoria demanding that their memorandum be received by the governor. However he refused.
"He actually had taken a decision not to come and receive the memorandum on the second demonstration," said Numsa president Cedric Gina.
The protest was the second this year held by Numsa.
The memorandum highlighted that employment and equitably shared economic growth needed to be factored into the bank's monetary policy in order to eradicate poverty and inequality.
The Congress of South Africa Trade Unions subsequently called for Mboweni
not to be reinstated as governor when his contract expires in August.
Unions in South Africa have been threatening and conducting drastic mass
action in the face of the first recession in South Africa since 1992 which has
led to numerous job losses, but many senior government officials have recently
been openly critical of such a ploy.
Jim said it was not enough to drop the interest rate and indicated that the bank should be guided more by the principles of the Polokwane Resolution and follow a more developmental role in improving the lives of workers.
"Polokwane says that all macro-policies should have employment creation as a central focus.
"The reserve bank is yet to announce how it sees its new role in the emerging developmental state and how this sits with inflation targeting," said Jim.
Meanwhile Gina said the union would continue to call for the interest rate to be cut by 200 basis points at next week's Monetary Policy Committee meeting.
"We are not resting, we are working very hard," he said.
However he would not be drawn on whether Numsa would march if this did not come to fruition.
Numsa would meet the SARB in July and would hold back on protests.
"We have open negotiations now. A march is a clear extension [of our rights]. There is no contradiction between a march and the negotiations that are currently underway," said Jim.
In a statement following the meeting Mboweni said: "The discussions were constructive and informative. The agenda was not exhausted due to time constraints and it was agreed that a further meeting will be held as soon as possible."
I-Net Bridge has established that a number of senior members of the
Monetary Policy Committee were in attendance and the Numsa delegation comprised
around 12.
- Sapa and I-Net Bridge