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On Friday, 5 February, I visited stakeholders in the textile industry, in KwaZulu-Natal. The visit was designed to focus on unemployment in general and the textile industry in particular.

I was accompanied by DA Shadow Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry Andricus van der Westhuizen MP, DA Shadow Minister of Labour Andrew Louw MP and DA Shadow Deputy Minister of Labour Ian Ollis MP, as well as DA KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Leader John Steenhuisen, DA Councillors Dean Macpherson and Brian Jayanathan and former DA public representative and local businessman Rory Macpherson.

Click here to visit our Parliament for the People webpage where we have uploaded a detailed report as well as a large number of photos of the things we saw and the people we met in KwaZulu-Natal.

(For a full gallery of photos please visit our Parliament for the People webpage or our DA Media Centre website.)

This is the sixth visit of my Parliament for the People campaign. The other visits have been:

The Nyanga Refugee Centre in Cape Town
Pelenomi Hospital in the Free State
RDP Housing developments in Limpopo
The Thokoza informal settlement in Gauteng
Water and Sewerage works in Mthatha and Port St Johns, Eastern Cape

Why the textile industry

We decided to focus on the textile industry in KwaZulu-Natal because, first, this is one of the biggest industries in the province and, second, because the textile industry has been devastated in recent years. It is estimated that at least 80 000 jobs have been lost over the past six years and 50 textile companies closed down in 2009 alone. South Africa is in the grips of an unemployment crisis, this, then, was a way to see the way in which this crisis has manifested in real terms.

The crisis in the textile industry has also long been a concern of the DA and we have proposed eight measures, which we believe government should implement urgently if the crisis in this industry is to be addressed.

We therefore decided to go and speak to stakeholders and workers in the textile industry to firstly, see for ourselves what the current state of affairs is in this industry in KwaZulu-Natal and secondly, to find out what solutions stakeholders, themselves, propose to resolve the many problems the textile industry is faced with.

Who we visited

We visited stakeholders in the textile industry as well as textile workers who had been retrenched in recent months, namely:

Beier Industries: that consists of three companies producing safety and military footwear, coated fabrics and technical textiles;
John Comely: CEO of Celrose Garment Manufacturing and Head of the SA Footwear and Leather Industries Association (SAFLIA)
Visits to three unemployed textile workers in Tongaat: Devarani Naiker, Dolly Yeriah and Thanga Govender

The management of Beier Industries and John Comely raised the same problems and challenges their companies, as well as the textile industry as a whole, are faced with on a daily basis, namely:

A lack of proper enforcement of custom and importing policies, regulations and legislation;
Corrupt procurement processes and incompetent government officials awarding tenders;
Inexperienced customs officials at borders and ports;
Poor regulation and enforcement within the SADC Customs Union;
The Duty Credit Certificate (DCC) Scheme and how it has been manipulated;
The lack of implementation of government's bail out plan;
Massive skills shortages and the failure of the SETA system;
Rising electricity and water rates.

Click here to read more details, as well as practical examples of these problems including:

Eskom recently awarding an R80 million tender to an overseas company for filter bags that were being produced locally and;
The tender for boots for the South African Police Service being given to the same company each year despite the fact that thousands of policemen and women throw these boots away and buy boots privately from Beier Industries, which are not only far superior, but also R40 cheaper per pair.

Both Beier Industries and John Comely proposed the following solutions, which they believe would help alleviate these problems:

a) Self-policing/self-regulation of the textile industry;
b) Customs to be capacitated by skilled customs officials;
c) Signatory governments in the SADC Customs Union should be able to conduct inspections in other member countries;
d) Private industry expertise should be utilised by government especially customs and;
e) The SETA system needs to be scrapped.

Click here to read more details about these solutions.

We also met three textile workers living in Tongaat who had recently lost their jobs. We spoke to them about how they had lost their work and how it had affected their lives and we also gave them hampers containing basic foodstuffs and toiletries, which Councillor Brian Jayanathan had put together by collecting donations from local businesses.

We met and spoke to the following people:

1) Devarani Naiker: Who lived with her two children and her twin siblings. She had lost her job last December after working in the textile company for 19 years. Her entire family was currently living off her brother's disability grant and she showed us that her electricity had been switched off and told us that she struggled to feed her family;
2) Dolly Yeriah: Took a retrenchment package last August in order to pay her bond repayments which she had fallen behind on. She had not been able to find work since then and as a result she struggled to look after her granddaughters who were in grade 6 and 9 and who had been left with her. She also told us how the smaller Cut, Make and Trim factories exploited their workers often making them work 16 hour days and not paying them;
3) Thanga Govender: Had worked as a machinist for over 15 years but arrived at work last year only to be told the factory had been closed down and that she no longer had a job. She received no payouts from the company. She made ends meet by working as a masseuse and she also volunteered at her local police station.

What struck us with all three people we met in Tongaat was that they were not interested in simply receiving grants from government. They were proud, pro-active people who wanted to be able to put their own food on their tables and did not want to become dependant on government hand-outs and grants.

Click here to read more details and to see photo's of who met and what we saw in Tongaat.
Conclusion

It is clear from our meetings with stakeholders in the textile industry and with textile workers that this industry is in dire straits.

Government's industrial policy is fundamentally flawed both in its implementation and ultimate goal as it seeks to ingrain state bureaucracy and control in the private business sector. Compounding this problem is that that our borders and ports are completely porous due to lack of regulation and supervision by customs and there are massive skill shortages facing South Africa.

This has resulted in counterfeit goods flooding the country; the local textile industry losing its competitiveness; billions of Rands being lost by government in duties each year; local textile companies closing down and major job losses.

The people worst affected by the current situation are the ordinary factory workers living in South Africa, such as Devarani, Dolly and Thanga who struggle to feed themselves and their families on a daily basis.

The DA will therefore be taking a number of action steps at both a national level in Parliament as well a provincial and local level through the KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Legislature and municipal councils to deal with this crisis. We will also conduct a follow-up visit within a year to see whether any improvements have been made to these three housing projects.

Click here to read more details on the steps we will be taking at these levels of government.

We will provide continuous feedback on outcomes of our actions steps as well as what we find during our follow-up visit on our Parliament for the People webpage.