The South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU) rejects the shallow celebration of the marginal 0.1% GDP growth recorded in the first quarter of 2025. This so-called growth is neither inclusive nor transformative. It leaves behind the unemployed, the landless, the youth, and the working poor.
That the economy narrowly escaped contraction in the first quarter of 2025 belies the claimed successes of the first phase Operation Vulindlela. While he inaugurated the second phase Operation Vulindlela on the 7th of May 2025, president Ramaphosa was in a triumphalist and celebratory mode about the supposed successes of the first phase of Operation Vulindlela. He further promised the country that the second phase of the Operation heralds an era of growth, jobs and prosperity.
As SAFTU, we argued then, as we continue to argue now, that the privatization of SOEs through the back door – as envisioned by Operation Vulindlela – budget cuts, a restrictive monetary policy and the restriction of the state’s role in the economy to that of an enabler of ‘conducive environment for business to thrive’, will never lead to growth sufficient enough to offer the working class a reprieve.
Fiscal, monetary and trade policy will have to be radically reoriented away from the failed dogmas of neoliberalism, if the economy is to register growth levels significant enough to reduce the stubbornly high unemployment rate, grinding poverty and unacceptably high levels of inequality.
We reiterate: meaningful, pro-poor growth will continue to be elusive until the colonial, apartheid growth path rooted in extractivism — an economy structured to mine and export raw materials while leaving townships and rural areas in ruin – is transformed in favour re-industrialisation through state-led investment, localisation, and manufacturing.
End the Domination of the Minerals–Finance–Chemicals Complex
South Africa’s economy remains trapped in a minerals–finance–heavy chemicals complex — a model of accumulation shaped by colonialism, deepened under apartheid, and preserved by neoliberal democracy.
This outdated model is unsustainable because mining is in a long-term decline – it sheds jobs, depletes finite resources, and destroys the environment.
Finance capital, aided and abated by the South African Reserve Bank, enriches a narrow elite while bypassing the real economy and productive job creation.
It is disempowering because heavy chemical industries rely on energy- and capital-intensive processes with limited linkages to job-rich sectors.
SAFTU calls for a radical break from this elite-dominated structure. The minerals-finance-chemicals core must no longer dictate national development priorities.
What Must Be Done – SAFTU’s Structural Alternatives
- Democratise the Economy
- Break up monopolies and nationalise key sectors under worker and community control.
- Prioritise the real economy: agriculture, manufacturing, healthcare, and education.
- Diversify the Economic Base
- End reliance on raw mineral exports.
- Reindustrialise through state-led investment, localisation, and small-scale manufacturing.
- Mass-Based Agrarian and Food System Reform
- Redistribute land with proper state support for production and infrastructure.
- Replace food import dependency with food sovereignty.
- Build a Caring Economy
- Invest in social infrastructure: health, early childhood development, elder care, and public transport.
- Create millions of dignified jobs through the expansion of public services.
- Finance for Development – Not Elite Speculation
- Reclaim the financial sector to serve people, not profits.
- Establish a state bank and direct public and pension funds into national development.
✊🏾 Growth for Whom? SAFTU Says: Break With the Past
The current growth path is exclusionary and failing. It is designed to serve mining bosses, financial speculators, and chemicals monopolies — not workers, not the poor, and not our youth.
SAFTU stands for a new economy – built from below, grounded in solidarity, redistribution, and justice. Until the structural crises are addressed, no statistical uptick can be called progress.
Growth without justice is just extraction.
Jobs without dignity are not transformation.
Development without democracy is domination.
It’s time to reclaim the economy. For workers. For the poor. For the future.
A Statement was issued on behalf of SAFTU by General Secretary Zwelinzima Vavi.
For more details, contact the National Spokesperson at:
Newton Masuku
066 168 2157
Newtonm@saftu.org.za
