COSATU has told the ANC’s national executive committee (NEC) lekgotla at the weekend that the party is gradually dying, and faces the prospect of losing power in the 2024 general election.
During her speech at weekend’s lekgotla, Cosatu president Zingiswa Losi said the ANC’s performance during the municipal elections was not a surprise
“It is deeply worrying that this Lekgotla does not have a commission focusing on organisational renewal, nor the local elections. Yet the movement is in mess. For the first time since 1994, we received less than 50% of the vote and lost the majority of metros,” said Losi.
“Denialism will not make our problems disappear.”
She added that the movement’s performance in the 2021 local elections was not a surprise.
“It was expected given an unemployment rate of 44%, rampant corruption and deteriorating public services. What have we done to turn the tide, to correct our mistakes? Judging by the behaviour of some of our Councillors who think being an effective opposition means knocking over tables and disrupting Council meetings, we have not learned much,” she said.
“If we continue on this road, then we must accept that we will lose the 2024 elections.”
She said COSATU was also disappointed at the failure of the ANC to pay its employees since October last year.
“It is unacceptable. It is unbelievable that we allow this to continue. ANC staff are treated little better than cheap labour. They have been forced to embark on a stayaway, yet our comrades in government receive their comfortable salaries,” she said.
Losi said the ANC staff are correct to put down their tools.
“And they must not be threatened with disciplinary action. Pay them what they are owed and do it now,” she said.
Losi said COSATU was disappointed and angered that the attacks on collective bargaining that started in local government, then went to SOEs, now spreading to the public service resulting in it abandoning a signed wage agreement in 2020, have now spread to the ANC itself as an employer.
“We must condemn how the ANC treats its own workers,” said Losi.
She said it’s disappointing to hear Luthuli House blaming the Party Funding Act for its failures to pay staff.
The Act came into effect in April 2021 and yet ANC staff have been subjected to repeated delays in salaries and no increases for more than three years.
“In our desperation to raise funds, we must not gut the Party Funding Act. This is a progressive Act, the ANC was correct to pass it, we must now defend it,” she said.
“We may say increase the limits on donations, but we must not touch the requirements to disclose the source of donations, unless we are saying we receive funds from criminals.”
- Inside Politics
