Mboweni declines - and leaves Numsa fuming
May 28, 2009
By Michael Hamlyn
Reserve Bank Governor Tito Mboweni has gone and upset the National Union of Metalworkers (Numsa) yet again.
Although they claimed he agreed to have someone accept a memorandum from the marchers outside his headquarters offices, they found the doors locked and barred when they rocked up to hand it over on Wednesday.
"Numsa is disgusted that despite initially agreeing to allocate someone to receive Numsa's memorandum, the South African Reserve Bank has now done an about-turn and has refused to accept it," Alex Mashilo, the union spokesman said.
"Meanwhile more than 2,000 marching Numsa members are standing outside the bank frustrated and angry at the governor's refusal to accept it. Numsa is always open to engagement and is disturbed that the door has been closed on them."
The memorandum that bank officials would have seen points out that the unions are not convinced that the bank is heeding the approach of the ANC in its attitude to the country's macroeconomic policy.
"Fiscal and monetary policy mandates including management of interest rates and exchange rates, need to actively promote creation of decent employment, economic growth, broad-based industrialisation, reduced income inequality and other developmental imperatives," the union's memorandum said.
It declares that international interest rates have been cut far more robustly than here. United States dropped from 2% to just above 0%, Australia from 6.8% to 3%. Canada is at 0.5%, China at 5.31%, Denmark at 2.25%, India at 5.0%, Korea at 2%.and Malaysia at 2%.
In the UK the interest rate is at 0.5% plummeting from as high as 5% in October last year.
"An increasing number of our members are under serious financial distress because of short-time, layoffs and retrenchments," the union memorandum said. "Their household debt is soaring. Their inability to pay off household debt will also translate into a burden on our financial system.
"At a social level, many of our members are suffering from depression, others are contemplating suicide, relationships are under strain, students and schoolchildren are dropping out of school because of lack of funds."
Numsa noted that countries that compete with South Africa have very low interest rates compared with ours.
"This makes the cost of capital for those wanting to create new jobs or to save current jobs, very high and renders us internationally uncompetitive," their memorandum said. "Instead of linking interest rates to inflation rates, Numsa believes that the target must be with employment imperatives and industrial growth and development."
The unionists also demanded that the commercial banks must be tightly regulated and closely monitored instead of being left in the state of lawlessness, "the so-called self-regulation".
"There is no historical evidence in our country that these banks have ever taken the plight of the workers and the poor into consideration. It is a well-known fact that the South African banks are concerned with profits and nothing else.
"Banking services in South Africa are as a result amongst the most expensive in the world. In this the workers and the poor have suffered high banking charges and interest rates."
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