Of­fi­cials of the Na­tion­al Work­ers' Union have ex­pressed con­cern about a meet­ing due to take place to­mor­row be­tween the lead­er­ship of the Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre (Natuc) and Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Lar­ry Howai.The meet­ing has been de­scribed as a "con­sul­ta­tive ses­sion" aimed at pro­vid­ing an overview of the struc­tur­al fea­tures of a typ­i­cal pub­lic pri­vate part­ner­ship) arrange­ment.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, the NWU said the meet­ing is an in­di­ca­tor that gov­ern­ment is push­ing ahead with its pri­vati­sa­tion pol­i­cy, where "as­sets owned by the peo­ple are go­ing to be put un­der the con­trol of the cap­i­tal­ists (lo­cal and for­eign) to the detri­ment of work­ing peo­ple."

The union said: "The gov­ern­ment has long an­nounced that they in­tend to pri­va­tise ports, air­ports, pub­lic util­i­ties, health care pro­vi­sion and pen­sions. Spe­cial men­tion has been made of di­vest­ing First Cit­i­zens' Bank, Home Mort­gage/TTMF and PLIPDE­CO."The NWU said it has "more than once ve­he­ment­ly con­demned the pol­i­cy of the gov­ern­ment which is bol­stered by the ad­vice ten­dered at the Ar­ti­cle IV Con­sul­ta­tions of the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund".

The union claims Natuc "is on record as sup­port­ing the gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy of pub­lic pri­vate part­ner­ship and has even of­fered to par­tic­i­pate in this process which re­sults in the in­crease of for­eign and cap­i­tal­ist con­trol of the econ­o­my and in loss of jobs. The NWU is on record as con­demn­ing this po­si­tion es­poused by NATUC."The NWU not­ed that Price Wa­ter­house Coop­er is the fa­cil­i­ta­tor of the meet­ing.