COSATU will present its submission and proposals to Parliament’s Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement public hearings tomorrow at 10 am -Wednesday 06 November, Old Assembly, Parliament.

South Africa’s faces its greatest economic and governance crises since 1994:

·         Unemployment is at 40% and the highest since 2008;

·         1000s of workers are retrenched monthly;

·         400 000 new job seekers enter the economy annually;

·         A fragile 1% GDP growth;

·         Declining tax revenues;

·         A loss of 10% of the budget to wasteful expenditure and corruption annually;

·         Unsustainable and rising levels of debt;

·         Eskom and other SOEs facing collapse; and

·         South Africa on the verge of being declared below investment grade in February 2020.

Despite these massive crises, the government failed to produce any detailed and serious plans to turn the economy, unemployment levels, the state, SOEs, taxes, and expenditure around.

Instead, we saw attacks on the right of public servants to earn a living wage, endless dithering by the government on how to stabilise and save the SOEs like Eskom. There is no accountability for the billions lost to corruption or departments which fail to spend their budgets and meet their targets.

COSATU will share its various proposals to address the crises facing workers in the economy, Eskom, the state, SARS, etc.

The federation will not wait for the government to have some sort of Damascus moment and expect Treasury to present a credible budget in February.  COSATU has been and will be engaging the President and leadership of the Alliance and government to urgently see how best these existential crises can be addressed.  Workers cannot afford to wait any longer.

For further information please contact:

Matthew Parks Parliamentary Coordinator   Cell: 082 785 0687 Email: matthew@cosatu.org.za   6th Floor, Constitution House, 124 Adderley Street (corner of Church Street) Cape Town 8000, South Africa