Daily News
*Uniforms rule welcomed* *Bheki Mbanjwa, Daily News, Durban, 2 August 2012*The Treasury's directive instructing all departments and state-owned enterprises to procure their uniforms from local manufacturers has been broadly welcomed, but players in the ailing textile and clothing industry have warned that this was not a cure-all remedy.
The Apparel Manufacturers of SA (Amsa) warned that this would not take the domestic manufacturing sector out of the danger zone as the country continued to be exposed to cheap exports from countries such as China.
Johann Baard, the executive director at Amsa, said decisive action was needed to stop illegal imports and to secure convictions of the perpetrators.
The organisation also believed that the government should allow duty-free importation of fabrics that are not available domestically.
"Fabric is our single biggest input cost and yet we are required to pay an average of 22 percent duty on imported fabric despite such fabrics not being made locally".
Baard said it would be difficult to predict how many jobs would be saved by the move towards 100 percent local procurement in uniforms.
"But we are confident that if 100 percent compliance is delivered by all parties affected in state and parastatal entities, it could result at a minimum in job retention and modest job creation over the next two years within the limited scope of companies who manufacture these goods".
Yusuf Vahed, the chief executive of Kingsgate Clothing Group, also welcomed the move but said it was not new.
"Treasury is just enforcing the existing preferential procurement policy. We have been involved in government tenders since 1994 and we have always been told that the full product has to be 100 percent locally produced".
Vahed said the textile industry was still going through a difficult time with many jobs having been lost due to production having moved to overseas countries where the cost of labour was cheaper, making the cost of the end product also cheaper.
"Generally the employment levels in the industry have shrunk significantly. We have maintained our employment levels because of our multi-faceted customer base. We supply to bigger chain stores, to the informal sector in the form of hawkers and we also get a lot of government business," he said.
The textile industry in KZN was one of the worst affected by the recession and the foreign imports.
In 2009, the provincial government promised to pump 70 million into efforts aimed at reviving the industry.
Zet Luzipo, the secretary of Cosatu in KZN, said the union welcomed the government's move, but said it would also require a lot of education and awareness programmes.
"We have been campaigning for this since 2004 because we believe the government should lead by example. This should however not only be about compliance; we need education and awareness so that it comes to a point where everybody understands that it is the right thing to do," said Luzipo
He said these moves would boost the industry. *Roadmap*Simon Eppel, a researcher for the SA Clothing and Textile Workers Union (Sactwu), said while Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Act was not new -- having come into effect in December last year -- the directive issued this week was a guideline detailing how this should be achieved.
"Such a roadmap has been missing for the past couple of months," he said. Eppel said that the private sector would also have to come on board.He said there had been other interventions by the government aimed at dealing with the cheap imports. "These include amendments to customs legislation and greater vigilance by SARS; it is not enough but it has been increased."
He warned that enforcing the law would also be a challenge as there was massive tender fraud in the country.
"Opportunists are bound to try to circumvent this. Some people are bound to fall through the cracks, but Treasury is taking steps to monitor this".
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>*From: http://www.iol.co.za/dailynews/news/uniforms-rule-is-not-cure-all-1.1355143#.UBtvbPYgf3M*
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