Nicolas Dieltiens and Lucien van der Walt

Debating Privatisation

2000

The policy document on the privatisation of parastatals announced by the Ministry of Public Enterprises, Jeff Radebe on 10 August 2000 represents an acceleration of the process of privatisation in South Africa.It was with this in mind that the Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF) was formed in Johannesburg as a coalition of forces to oppose privatisation. The APF brings a wide range of organisations including trade unions, student’ organisations, civic structures, political groups and NGOs.

The APF believes it is necessary to take the debate on privatisation into the public domain.For this reason the APF has organised a number of demonstrations, pickets and public forums to highlight the dangers of privatisatioñ for working people and the poor

While government’s decision to consult labour on the “restructuring of state assets” ís to be welcomed, the planned sell-offs of the state-owned enterprises (SO.Es) should be strongly resisted.This does not imply that the Apartheid modelled parastatals do not need, to be transformed.At issue here is the privatisation of state enterprises built up over many decades with taxpayers money.

The Ministry of Public Enterprises’ document on privatisation makes several falsee/aims:

The facts are:


Retrieved on 12th September 2021 from lucienvanderwalt.com
Published in AIDC Alternatives, pp. 4–5. Produced for the Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF) in 2000.