UNDICTATED: Why steelmaker AMSA forced into 35% downsizing. Hint: Eskom, Transnet.

This week’s shock announcement that South Africa’s dominant but loss-making steelmaker Arcelor Mittal is cutting its 10,000 workforce by 35%, is a case of gradually….then suddenly. For the past five years, this one-time major exporter has been pleading for sanity from Pretoria. With ever-growing problems at Eskom and an imploding Transnet, AMSA is now being forced to close the gigantic long steel plant at its Newcastle Works, which will lead to laying off over 2,000 of the 3 500 affected group-wide. It is a massive blow for the KZN town where AMSA is easily the biggest private sector employer. In this episode of UNDICTATED, BizNews’s Newcastle-grown editor Alec Hogg gets the what’s, why’s and how’s from AMSA chief executive Kobus Verster.