| dc.description.abstract | The purpose of the study was to identify the socio-economic impact that
privatization would have on South Africans and especially on disadvantaged
groups. It should be noted that privatization, which is an integral part of an
extensive public sector reform policy, occupies a central position in government
efforts of the development of the private sector. The objectives of privatization
are based on the needs and capacity of individual countries, and each country is
expected to have its own privatization objectives, depending on its level of
development are: improving efficiency; enhancing freedom of consumer choice;
fostering competition; reducing budget deficit and public debts; and further
extending private share ownership.
Since the inception and the implementation of the concept in South Africa, there
had been a considerable number of negative and positive critiques. Such
critiques are mainly based on the social impact of privatization, and that is where
the concept of social development and social welfare is applied in a quest of
seeking solutions to social impacts of privatization. The White Paper on Social
Welfare describes social welfare as an intrinsically linked system to other social
systems through which people's needs are met. Social welfare is a mechanism to
be used in the achievement of social development. Social work as a profession is
in this instance a major role player within the social welfare system. Hence its
involvement in the process of ensuring on ushering a better life for all, through
the enhancement of the societal and personal well-functioning.
The question of privatisation and its negative impacts on the society makes
social workers functions to be wider in addressing social problems. Therefore the
study sought to clearly define the role that can be played by social work within
the process of privatisation in pursuit of reducing the ever increasing social
pathologies. The study was further induced by the fact that privatization affects
our social landscape in that it brings in place illiteracy, unemployment, poverty,
retrenchments of the unskilled labourers and other related social pathological
problems.
Data gathering was conducted by means of literature study and personally
administered questionnaires. The questionnaires were aimed to understand the
socio-economic impacts of privatization in South Africa as an emerging economy,
to suggest possible interventionist strategies to avert and address the widening
socio-economic impacts of privatization and to delineate a role for social
development within the process of privatization in general and in averting the
anticipated social pathological problems associated with the process in particular.
The findings of the study revealed that privatization is beneficial to economic
growth and development, whereby it improves the investment grade rating of
South Africa by international credit rating agencies. Privatization further tend to
boost the enterprises in the sense that they enjoy access to capital and better
able to benefit from the transfer of foreign skills. Privatized companies also
facilitate a greater spread of share ownership amongst public in a wider
distribution of wealth. The study further reflects that privatization allows for an
accelerated reduction in the level of state debt which has significant impact on
the interest costs of government.
On the other hand the study indicates that privatization affects the country's
social landscape on numerous ways. It indicates that privatization involves
employment losses, high rate of unemployment and perpetuates the vicious
cycle of poverty. The study further indicates that private sector cannot meet the
needs of the poor, thereby denying the majority poor access to basic services
and infrastructure. The following problems had been identified as problems that
are associated with privatization: retrenchment of unskilled labourer,
casualisation of labourers, disintergration of families due to restructuring and
Poor service delivery by the private sector. | en_US |
