Karima Brown
5 December 2008
Johannesburg — PRESIDENT Kgalema Motlanthe yesterday moved to mitigate the effects of the financial crisis when the government decided to set up a special task team to look at how best to cope with the knock-on effect of job losses in SA.
The task team, to be drawn from business, labour and the government, will report to the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac).
The initiative follows a meeting of the presidential joint economic working group.
"It was agreed that we are facing an unprecedented situation which requires urgent action. The meeting reiterated the need for a continued co-operation among business, labour and government to mitigate the impact of the crisis on SA," a joint statement read.
"The working group agreed to engage, through a special Nedlac task team, on substantive matters related to the crisis and possible solutions. The objective of such an engagement would be to minimise job losses and other negative consequences brought by the crisis," it said. The task team will report to a special joint economic working group in February .
The meeting urged all sectors to do "everything in their power" to avoid retrenchment .
Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said the meeting focused on the trends in the global economy and their effect on SA.
He said that it was important for the country to demonstrate insight and find ways of dealing with the crisis.
"We can't talk past each other ... or we'll destroy this country together," Manuel said.
Federation of Unions of SA (Fedusa) general secretary Dennis George urged everyone to save jobs and suggested a number of measures to minimise the job-loss bloodbath. Among Fedusa's suggestions was that the interest rates be reduced.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) said it welcomed the government's "more positive" approach to the threat of job losses.
Cosatu spokesman Patrick Craven supported Fedusa's call for a rate cut, saying this had been a long-standing demand of the federation.
"We obviously think a rate cut will go some way to alleviate the stress, but we are also encouraging people to support our buy local campaign and want to see the expanded public works programme ramped up," he said.
Craven said though Cosatu welcomed Manuel's call for a dialogue on the crisis and its effect on jobs, it needs to "lead to action".
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