UNION federation Cosatu has rejected Finance Minister Tito Mboweni proposal to freeze public servants for three years as a measure to reduce the public sector bill and labelled it an attack to the workers.
Cosatu spokesman Sizwe Pamla reacting to the medium term budget said the government should rather free salaries of senior managers and politicians and not touch the salaries of lowly paid workers.
This was after Mboweni earlier in the National Assembly proposed that public servants salaries should be frozen for three years.
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Pamla said Cosatu totally reject this proposal.
“We will only take seriously the government when it reduces exorbitant salaries and perks of the executive and management at all levels of government; including scrapping the insulting perks afforded to the executive under the Ministerial Hand Book,” Pamla.
He said the federation is surprised by the Treasury’s obsession with reducing the public sector wage bill which he said will weaken the sector and leave 12 million workers without jobs. Leaving the bill as is would not collapse the government either.
“We demand they reduce the number of cabinet members, in particular, the number of Deputy Ministers and place all public sector entities and SOEs under the PSCBC so that there is one collective bargaining process. Workers have the right to be protected from inflation and to a living wage to take care of their families,” he said.
He described the budget as underwhelming with no clear solutions for the workers or offered answers on how to fix the economy that has been battered by the coronavirus pandemic.
Pamla said Cosatu had hoped that the budget would give details on how President Cyril Ramaphosa’s recovery plan would be implemented but that was not forthcoming.
“We wanted to hear more about timeframes, resources allocated, the impact upon jobs and growth, etc. The speech unfortunately was very thin in this regard. Some welcome references were made towards investing in housing, hospitals, ports, and digital spectrum but again with very little details.
Cosatu was also disappointed that Mboweni had not said anything about amending Regulations 28 to allow the private sector to invest in the infrastructure as he announced in February.
“ It is clear now that there is no plan to fight corruption and wasteful expenditure that consume on average R150 billion or 10% of the budget according to the Auditor General of South Africa,” he said.
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The medium term budget contained no new measures to address this cancer eating at the heart of the state.
“We urge the government to implement the bold proposals that COSATU tabled at Nedlac which include banning Politically Exposed Persons and their families from doing business with the state, a transparent open online public procurement system for the entire state, centralised procurement of large items and rapid response anti-corruption courts. The government’s lethargy in tackling corruption is inexcusable.
“Billions are being lost due to tax evasion and 95% of goods coming through our ports of entry are not inspected. About 65% of our imported goods are manufactured products and the government has no plan to build the capacity of SARS and stopping South Africa becoming a huge warehouse of cheap Asian goods,” he said.
On the positive, Pamla said they were pleased the federation proposal to allow workers to tap into their pension funds when they are in financial distress after losing their jobs. It urged parliament to speedily pass the bill.
Also welcomed is the extension of the R350 unemployment relief grant which was introduced when the country was placed on lockdown to help the poor.
It was however disappointed that no new measures were announced by Mboweni to nudge the banks to disperse the R200 billion Loan Guarantee Scheme to businesses. It said so far only R16 billion has been dispersed.
