The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) has said Telkom should not be privatised in any way, adding the death of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher should signal the end of such policies.
The government currently owns almost 40 per cent of South Africa’s biggest fixed line internet provider and pulled the plug on a deal to sell the company to Korea Telecom in May last year.
In a statement following Numsa’s National Bargaining Conference, the union said: “We demand an end to any privatisation of Eskom, Telkom, Transnet and railway lines as envisaged in the NDP in the name of private-public partnership.
“Sometimes we hear it called ‘concessioning’ or ‘unbundling’, but it is just privatisation by other names. The death of Margaret Thatcher must signal the end of these Thatcherite policies.”
Numsa called for further nationalisation of major service providers and said power should be given back to the people to run them.
