THE DA wants the government to publicly reveal its agreements with Cuba to employ its citizens in South Africa, which has cost the government more than R1.4 billion.
“The DA will submit Promotion of Access to Information Act [PAIA] applications to various government departments to obtain the full details of employment agreements between the South African and Cuban governments,” DA chief whip Natasha Mazzone said in a statement.
“R1.4 billion is a large amount of money, and there is very little detail on these employment agreements.”
The DA, therefore, is seeking access to the following information with its PAIA application:
- A full breakdown of the payments to the Cuban workers, including salaries, accommodation and travelling fees.
- Whether payments are made directly to the workers or if payments are made to the Cuban government directly.
- If the Cuban government receives financial incentives from these agreements.
- Confirmation if a skills audit is done in South Africa to find out what critical skills were needed that the local professionals did not have.
- Whether an impact assessment is done after these deployments to ascertain the necessity of continuing with these agreements.
Mazzone said he DA does not believe that these agreements are completely as straight forward as the government would like the public to believe.
“It simply makes no sense why the South African government would fork out billions of rands to pay for the skills and services from Cuba when there are unemployed and qualified workers across South Africa in all the identified fields desperate for employment,” said Mazzone.
More than 200 doctors from Cuba are arrived in South Africa earlier this year to help fight coronavirus.
They were among 1,200 healthcare workers sent to battle Covid-19 in 22 countries that have requested help from the communist state.
- Inside Politics
