Johnathan Paoli
THE EFF has called out President Cyril Ramaphosa on his recent call through the Presidency asking big-business to delay the planned resignations, due to, among other things, the ongoing energy crisis, collapsed logistical infrastructure and rising levels of crime.
In a statement on Wednesday, the Red Berets said the requested delay in retrenchments had nothing to do with the development or implementation of a plan to make business operations in South Africa less hostile, but rather a request rooted in electioneering and desperation.
“It is nothing but a delay tactic, that seeks to postpone retrenchments until after elections, to avoid the impact they may have on the ANC’s prospects at the polls,” the statement read.
The EFF said that the ruling party had no believable or verifiable plan to end the energy crisis, to fix railway infrastructure or to curb crime and corruption.
The party maintained that the request by the Presidency was insincere and could be read as purely based on protecting the election interests of the ANC, in light of the fact that despite the request of a delay, the presidency was currently planning on retrenching 6000 workers from the SA Post Office.
The party concluded with a call on the people of the country to go out in their numbers and register to vote in order for jobs to be protected and for a government that had an interest in ending the massive levels of unemployment to be elected.
The request from the Presidency comes on the backdrop of a jobs-bloodbath, which is expected to see major industries in steel manufacturing, mining and telecommunications retrench thousands of workers and worsen the unemployment crisis in our country.
Currently the number of unemployed people in the country stands at 11.7 million, and the EFF said the mismanagement of Eskom, the collapse of railways, crime and corruption was creating an environment where unemployment was set to increase at the behest of the ruling party.
Project management office head in the presidency Rudi Dicks previously said more time was required in order to give the government the opportunity to be able to implement the specific public and private sector interventions with greater speed and urgency before retrenchment decisions were taken as a last resort.
Dicks said that his office launched the Operation Vulindlela Structural Reform Programme, specifically looking at five areas, namely electricity supply, logistics sector, visa regime, water, and telecommunications and that significant strides have been achieved in these areas.
“I think this is really the call that we are making – that we shouldn’t try and reduce cost and cut labour as quickly as possible; but allow for this plan to be implemented as a matter of speed and for us to be able to give effect to that,” Dicks said.
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