The Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (DENOSA) registers its annoyance at media-reports that government is planning to cut as much as 30 000 jobs in the public service at the time when quality of public service is deteriorating due to gross shortage of public servants.
While government has publicly denied these reports by media, however, this move would be in line with previous intentions as announced by Treasury in its Budget Speeches, which we had warned against. For instance, current Finance Minister, Nhlanhla Nene, made this intention clear in 2014 during his Mid-Term Budget Policy Statement when he said government was planning consolidate personnel numbers and that jobs which had been vacant for some time would cease to exist.
Once again, DENOSA, would like to bring to the attention of the public that this move will not only result in poor and worse services rendered to communities, but will further drain the very same public funds that government believes it would be saving by cutting the jobs, due to high litigation rate as a result of shortage of public servant in areas like health.
It is obvious that such a decision would have to be tabled at the collective bargaining platform, but the fact that government had made this intention clear previously makes us to believe the media reports. But organised labour will obviously reject this absurd thinking, simply because:
- Government will still have to fill the hundreds of thousands of vacancies in the public sector;
- We can’t allow another Life Esidimeni phenomenon in public health because even the current vacancies are leading to high litigations against government; Government had to pay over R150 million for trying to save costs in the removal of mentally-ill patients in Gauteng.
- Citing the reskilling and retraining of public servants as a justification for job cuts because there are many nurses who have been retrained already and are being abused and made to work and as professional nurses on the salaries of enrolled nurses because vacancies are not being advertised.
Therefore, despite government’s denial of this secret move, DENOSA believes that government will only be left with regrets if it forges ahead with this move, as it will spell disaster to the quality of public service.
Issued by the Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (DENOSA)
For more information and comment, contact:
Cassim Lekhoathi, DENOSA Acting General Secretary
Mobile: 082 328 9671
Or
Simon Hlungwani, DENOSA President
Mobile: 082 328 9635