SAFTU warns against confusing a lower rate of price increases with improved living standards [SOUND]

# The South African Federation of Trade Unions says the country has an economy scarred by world-beating unemployment, mass poverty, inequality, stagnant growth and declining industrial capacity. Headline inflation eased to 4.3-percent in July from 5.0-percent in June. Saftu’s Asive Dyani says the medicine prescribed for inflation- restrictive monetary policy, high interest rates, and fiscal austerity is being administered to an economy already suffering from chronic underinvestment, deindustrialisation, poverty and mass unemployment: