Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Hearing common sense emanating from someone highly placed in the guvmunt is like watching a fresh dew drop sliding down a petal - into a septic tank. Perhaps it is the half-white in him that makes him stand out as competent and I know we'd all like to think everything is all gloom and doom in South Africa but let's give credit when it is due. Manuel is right and must be acknowledged for taking a tough stance against the unions. But like Barbara Hogan one wonders how long he will last taking on Zuma's backers, the Left. Zuma, like Mbeki, can be recalled. It's a gamble.
Related:
Zuma turns on unions - The Times
(Reuters) - Trevor Manuel, head of South Africa's government planning commission, described businesses as cowards on Thursday for giving in to unions and criticised labour for overusing strikes to push for social change.
The comments from Manuel could be a sign of readiness by the new administration to take a tough stand on increasingly vocal union allies of President Jacob Zuma who have been pushing for a policy shift to the left.
Manuel, who won the respect of markets for tight fiscal and monetary policies during his time as finance minister, said businesses were not working together as a counterweight to the unions.
"When anybody in the trade unions opens their mouth they run like hell. There's no counterweight in society and if there's no counterweight you can't have outcomes that actually advance and progress," said Manuel, head of the newly formed National Planning Commission.
"If we're going to have cowards in business, we're not going to get very far either. You must have that counterweight if you want that progress," he told a debate on South Africa at the World Economic Forum on Africa in Cape Town.
Despite demands from labour federation COSATU and communists for policy changes, Zuma has stressed there will be no major change to policies seen as pro-business at a time South Africa is suffering its first recession in 17 years.
Manuel also criticised unions for misusing a right to strike to push for social change.
"If you blunt a tool it has no meaning," he said.
QUESTION OF THE DAY: WHO SHOULD BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE?
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Seems this administration has been very busy releasing information that had
no businesses being released, to put it mildly. The past week has been
filled w...
48 minutes ago
4 Opinion(s):
Easy for him to say, when they are intolerant of a "counter-weight" opposition party, and have enacted onerous labour legislation, which has effectively rendered business impotent.
Most likely the managment is focusing on other issues such as plan B ( to get their families out of here )
Political talk from another air head. The ANC does not like opposition nor does COSATU. He better than anyone should know that. Communism does not respect opposition.
Mr Automatic is getting his hair in a tizz because he can see the shite looming over them thar hills to the left.
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