Call for SA to stop importing PPES
Cosatu critical of Solidarity Fund
Trade union federation Cosatu and black business have warned against the continued importation of personal protective equipment (PPES), saying this was detrimental to efforts to save jobs.
Cosatu parliamentary coordinator Matthew Parks said there were elements in the state and private sector who have no sense of patriotic duty.
“Cosatu and its affiliates have engaged on this repeatedly with the government and business. We cannot support the fact that according to Business for South Africa (B4SA), more than 90% by their own admission, of our PPE supplies purchased by the Solidarity Fund during the COVID-19 have been imports. Cosatu condemns this in the strongest possible terms,” he said.
Parks said the trade union federation was frustrated that the Solidarity Fund, which procures medical equipment through B4SA, was not vigorously pursuing local procurement.
“Solidarity is funded by public and private local funding. This funding must be used to procure locally and not to buy cheap imports that can easily and must be made locally.”
He also condemned fronting by local suppliers who falsely claimed black economic empowerment credentials while they were middlemen procuring gear overseas.
Procurement processes at B4SA have come under scrutiny since Sunday World reported that the organisation had, in the initial period of the procurement of medical equipment, favoured lily-white companies at the expense of economic transformation. B4SA has also come under fire for importing medical equipment that can be made locally. The organisation said at the outbreak of the Coronavirus in March that it had to embark on an emergency procurement process that saw it importing most equipment. But Parks said B4SA continued to import equipment.
Black Business Council CEO Kganki Matabane said the country had adopted an importation strategy that was promoting jobs in other countries such as India and China.
“PPES and other very basic commodities are not complicated to manufacture but the government, as the biggest procurer, has not sought to support local manufacturers.
“This has led to the closure of more than 37 manufacturing plants in the last 20 years by multinational companies and those were re-established in India in the main,” he said.
“This is why we are calling for re-industrialisation and localisation so that we could create jobs and grow the economy of South Africa.”
The Solidarity Fund referred questions to B4SA, which had not responded at the time of going to press.