Numsa lashes Mbeki over his economic policies
THE NATIONAL Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) has come down hard on former president Thabo Mbeki, calling on him to debate his administration’s economic policies instead of clarifying his leadership style.
The union said during a briefing in Joburg yesterday that while the former states- man was free to exercise his democratic right of expression, they had hoped his return would be to unpack policies they blame for the “mess” the country is in.
The union was reacting to Mbeki’s publication of a series of letters meant to set the record straight on a number of issues and events in government and the ANC, related to his leadership.
Numsa said the implementation of the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (Gear) strategy had paved South Africa’s downhill path towards mass poverty and inequality.
“Some people want us to behave as if “his coming back is going to be with solutions… those who are in power have failed us and continued with those policies…
“We have a crisis. The ANC of Thabo Mbeki and President Jacob Zuma has failed the people of this country,” said Numsa general secretary Irvin Jim.
He also criticised Mbeki’s campaigns “against illicit outflows from South Africa and the continent”.
He accused the former president of allowing the illegal trend to transpire when he was still in government.
“In the recent past I heard him complaining that something must be done to stop illicit financial outflows in the country.
“The fundamental question is, why did he allow South African companies to go out of this country and take capital, both legally and illegally – they were directly involved in allowing South African companies to take the money that we desperately needed,” Jim said.
Numsa said policies such as Gear were in line with the “Washington consensus, which had not only failed the country but the entire world in 2008”.
Jim added that those who had subscribed to such “neoliberal ideology” had run out of ideas, and discussions at the World Economic Forum in Davos were indicative of that.