NYAKALLO TEFU
COSATU president Zingiswa Losi on Wednesday criticised Finance Minister Tito Mboweni for failing to meet with workers and leaders of SA’s major trade union federations, saying he should resign if he does not want to engage with the labour movement.
Losi was speaking in Pretoria outside the offices of the National Treasury during the labour federation’s national strike in which hundreds of workers delivered a memorandum to three departments.
Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula and Labour and Employment Minister Thulas Nxesi accepted the memorandum and apologised for Mboweni and his deputy David Masondo, who couldn’t make it as they were at a Cabinet Lekgotla which was discussing the budget.
“Treasury is part of government. The money that they are managing and handling, is money that is contributed by workers through their taxes. So, we cannot have a minister who is going to bow to the pressures of the IMF and the World Bank and forget about what is the mandate of government,” Losi said.
The unions are up in arms over the government’s plans to renege on an undertaking made in 2018 to grant its more than 1.2 million workers pay increases that would lump the country with R37.8 billion rand of additional debt.
About a third of South Africa’s annual 1.95 trillion-rand national budget is dedicated to salaries and freezing civil servants’ pay is critical to Mboweni’s plans to cut government spending by R230 billion rand over the next two years.
Mboweni’s budgetary plans ran counter to measures announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa and agreed with business and labour groups to revive the economy, said Losi.
The strike by Cosatu coincided with the start of a two-day Cabinet Lekgotla meeting to discuss the country’s economic recovery plan.
The government’s priorities will include increasing infrastructure investment, promoting mass employment and clamping down on crime and corruption.
Members of Cosatu were joined by Federation of Unions of South Africa (FEDUSA), the South African Federation of Unions (SAFTU) and the National Council of Trade Unions (NACTU) during the nationwide strike.
(COMPILED BY INSIDE POLITICS STAFF)
