By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) has announced plans for a national shutdown in August to protest against the rising cost of living and load shedding.
The federation briefed the media in Boksburg following its national executive committee meeting.
SAFTU is the country’s second-largest trade union confederation with an estimated membership of 800,000 workers.
“The NEC has decided to call for a national shut down to respond to the worsening living standards because of massive increase in prices for food, electricity, interests’ rates and fuels. Load shedding that leads to collapse of small businesses and increased job losses, says Saftu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi.
“The austerity programme that has led to government freezing public sector wages, not investing in the infrastructure, and not filling vacancies, privatisation, jobs bloodbath and the worsening unemployment, and the worsening levels of crime including GBV and killing of police officers,” says Vavi.
Vavi said the federation will ask a wide array of political parties and organisations to join the one-day strike.
“Saftu has set a targeted date for a one-day general strike on the 24 of August 2022. People who say ohh no so far. We don’t want to rush and just do another event which pass and the status quo remain.
“We want to be thorough in the consultation with our own members, we want to roll that process of consultation with other federations and other trade unions properly so that we don’t leave anybody behind. We want to knock at the door of every political party that is left leaning.”
South Africa’s CPI figures for June, set to be released in mid-July, are likely to show that inflation breached the 7% level on the back of rising fuel and food costs.
This comes after inflation reached a five-year high of 6.5% in May 2022, up from 5.9% in April 2022.
Transport and food and non-alcoholic beverages (NAB) accounted for just over half of the annual rate, with sharp price increases recorded in both categories. Fuel, in particular, continues to be a major contributor: if the impact of fuel is removed from the CPI reading in May, the headline rate falls to 5.1% from 6.5%.
Diesel prices jumped by 8.1% between April and May, taking the annual rate to over 45%. The average price of a litre of diesel in May 2021 was R16.20 – meaning it costs R729 to fill a 45-litre tank. Twelve months later, with the average price at R23.67 per litre, filling the same tank cost R1,065.
This situation has been exacerbated by South Africa’s worst load shedding outages on record, with Eskom currently instituting stage 5 load shedding on a daily basis.
Investec chief economist Annabel Bishop said South Africa’s economic growth now faces increased risk in the coming months as prolonged load shedding is set to continue. She added that the outcome for GDP in 2022 will now depend on how long the country experiences severe outages.
“A couple of days of stage 6 load shedding in one year will neither derail economic growth, nor credit ratings’ outlooks for South Africa, but persistent severe load shedding will – while South Africa enters a worsening global economic environment in the second half of 2022 as well.”
“This comes as South Africa’s fiscal metrics have been benefitting from both improved revenue collections – on the back of high commodity prices and increased SARS efficiencies – and the dampening effect of high inflation itself on the debt and deficit ratios to nominal GDP.”