05 Aug.
Cosatu: Nationalisation is a given.
Nationalisation is going to happen; it is just the manner in which it will be implemented that needs to be decided, the Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) said on Thursday.
“If you say business needs certainty to make investments… this is the certainty you need to have, that what is being discussed now is models,” Cosatu economist Chris Malekane said at a debate on nationalisation in Johannesburg.
He said the task team established by the African National Congress to examine nationalisation was not looking at the feasibility of the policy, but was exploring the most appropriate model to implement.
Cosatu had encouraged the ANC Youth League to place nationalisation firmly on the agenda, he said.
Malekane said all the parties represented at the last ANC national executive committee meeting supported nationalisation.
If the ANC task team produced a study that looked at only the feasibility of nationalisation, it would be rejected outright, he said.
Nationalisation referred to state ownership of all means of production including mines, banks and mineral wealth.
Compensation would be paid, but not for land.
“We’ll have to compensate in the interests of the public, but not in a way that will cripple the South African state… there has to be a balance.”
He said land was a natural assets that should be owned by the state and used by farmers, and that no compensation should be given for land. – Sapa
Source: Business Report
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