DELEGATION TO DOHA

Eight years ago, before the democratic elections of 1994 had taken place, Nedlac's forerunner, the National Economic Forum (NEF), brought labour and business together with the government to discuss South Africa's offer to the Uruguay round of the then-GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade), the forerunner to the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

In 1999, the Nedlac parties again joined the delegation to the WTO Ministerial meetings which took place in Seattle, where heated battles took place over the question of whether developing countries have seen any benefits of the trade liberalisation programme which is aimed at lowering global trade barriers.

In November 2001, WTO trade ministers meet in the Qatari capital, Doha, to discuss, amongst other issues, the possibility of a new trade round. Developing countries have argued for a new developmental round of policies that seek to eliminate the disparities between the countries of the South and the North.

Nedlac was again asked to send a delegation to accompany the Minister of Trade and Industry, Alec Erwin, to the WTO meetings. Part of that delegation is Michael Mcdonald of Business South Africa, who was involved in the NEF talks in 1993.

"The NEF got involved in July 1993, after the then Director-General of the DTI, Stef Naude, returned from Geneva having been told that South Africa needed to improve its offer to GATT", says McDonald. The team consisted of McDonald, as convenor of the NEF Trade and Industry Working Group, Hans van der Merwe, Bess Robertson and Nico Vermeulen from Business, Alec Erwin and Ebrahim Patel from Labour, with Stef Naude, Gerrit Breyl and then Minister of Finance and Trade and Industry, Derek Keys, from Government. McDonald recounts how the group worked "day and night" for a period of three months. "Our offer was accepted on the very last day of the deadline - 15 December 1993. We were having a meeting at Ebrahim Patel's office in Cape Town when we heard."

According to McDonald, South Africa is able to "fight well above its weight" in WTO negotiations because of the involvement of labour and business, and more recently, community, in its delegation. South Africa is possibly the only country that takes such a representative grouping to the WTO. He foresees no shortage of arguments at the 5-day meeting - "every paragraph in the draft document has at least one time bomb in it", says McDonald.

The members of the Nedlac delegation to Doha are:

• Phillip Dexter, Executive Director

• Maria Rantho, from the Disabled People of South Africa, and

• Khulu Mbongo of the South African Youth Council, representing Community;

• Cunningham Ngcukana, of Nactu and Tony Ehrenreich of Cosatu, representing Labour

• Michael McDonald and Hans vd Merwe of Business South Africa, representing Business