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The Federation of Unions of South Africa (FEDUSA) yesterday met with Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies at the annual strategic session of the Trade and Industry Chamber of the National Economic Development and Labour Council (NEDLAC). FEDUSA made renewed calls to all citizens to buy local in order to stimulate local enterprises, and also urged Government to address the challenges of illegal imports, under-invoicing and customs fraud.

Representatives of Government, Labour and Business gathered for the annual strategic session of NEDLAC’s Trade and Industry Chamber in Kempton Park, with the aim of reviewing the implementation of the Local Procurement Accord (concluded as part of the New Growth Path discussions) which deals with the preferential procurement regulations, designation of sectors and products and the green industry product designation, as well as the implementation of the Industrial Policy Action Plan (IPAP) 2 and trade negotiations with other countries.

“The South African manufacturing sector only contributed about 15% to the GDP of our country in 2011, said FEDUSA’s chief negotiator at this chamber, Vice-President Ashley Benjamin. “In 1977 the contribution was 21% of GDP before the global financial crisis of 2008 hit the global markets. This resulted in more than a million jobs being lost, mostly in the private sector. South Africa receives its major manufacturing contribution from agriprocessing, automotive, chemicals, ICT and electronics, metals, textiles, clothing, footwear, which are all labour intensive,” added Benjamin.

FEDUSA joined Organised Labour in commending Government’s support for the manufacturing sector, in particular the local footwear and leather industry. “The footwear industry benefited from government procurement of footwear for the police and military, and the support for the local footwear sector has contributed to job creation and a boost for the economy. However, more interventions are needed for the downstream sectors in the leather industry such as manufacturing of leather goods for the hospitality industry which has the potential for huge job creation,” said Benjamin. “We note the commitment from the DTI through their industrial incentives, competitiveness enhancement programmes and Customised Sector Programmes for manufacturing sectors.”

“We remain challenged by the support of local retailers and are appealing to them to increase their orders from local manufacturers so that we can tackle the triple challenge of inequality, poverty and unemployment. Other challenges include illegal imports, under-invoicing and customs fraud. These are huge threats to the competitiveness of local manufacturers and job security. However, as Organised Labour we are working closely with SARS as part of the Illegal imports and customs fraud task team under the auspices of NEDLAC with specific reference to the footwear, leather, clothing, textiles and tyres sectors”, he added.

FEDUSA is concerned that the National Skills Development Strategy (NSDS) does not complement the Local Procurement Accord and the IPAP2 towards industrialising our economy and strengthening our manufacturing sector to create more employment opportunities for our young people.

“South Africa does not have sufficient training facilitates in the form of skills centres, trade test centres and workplace experience placement opportunities to make provision for the millions of semi-skilled and unskilled young people. The silo mentality of government departments further aggravate the structural constraint of skills and it is further complicated by the slow speed of delivery, low pass rate of the Further Education and Training (FET) Colleges and the sidelining of the private sector. The IPAP2 research confirmed that 62% of manufacturing firms indicated that shortages of skilled labour as a major constraint, while they are battling to overcome and recover from the Great Recession,” said FEDUSA General Secretary Dennis George.