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The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) has recently launched a new call center to provide much-needed assistance to workers facing labour-related challenges. This dedicated resource aims to offer support, information, and guidance to both members of COSATU-affiliated unions and unorganized workers, ensuring that they have a place to turn for help with workplace issues.

COSATU to Present Submission on Adjustments Appropriation Bill to Parliament tomorrow (Friday 24 July) at 09:00 am

COSATU will present its submission on the Supplementary Budget’s Adjustments Appropriation Bill to Parliament’s Standing and Select Committees on Appropriations tomorrow (Friday 24 July) at 09:00.  The public hearings will be on a virtual platform.

Covid-19 has proven the need for a well-resourced and capacitated developmental state and South Africa is now paying the price for years of wrong policies, underfunding, mismanagement, wasteful expenditure, and corruption.

Schools lack decent sanitation, hospitals are understaffed, police and correctional officers are stretched, our infrastructure is crumbling, and the economy is pleading for an injection of new money.

The Federation will be focusing on the problematic budget cuts like the following:

·         R55 million from the CCMA when millions of workers face being retrenched, and their wages cut and are queueing in their numbers at the CCMA’s overcrowded offices.

·         R1.7 billion from the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition, including R1.2 billion from its Industrial financing programme threatening thousands of manufacturing jobs.

·         R2.2 billion from PRASA whilst Metro Rail is on its knees and R1.9 billion from public transport.

·         R1.5 billion from the Integrated National Electrification Programme;

·         R1 billion from Tourism, one of the economy’s largest employers and the sector that will take longest to recover from Covid-19.

·         R225 million from Sports, Arts and Culture whilst thousands of musicians still wait for relief.

·         R67 million from Small Business Development whilst the Department says it needs R11 billion to provide relief to SMMEs; and

·         7000 posts from the SAPS despite the President’s State of the Nation pledge to increase SAPS by 7000 and whilst 10 000 SAPS members have been infected by Covid-19.

These unhelpful reductions will only serve to further, weaken the state and must be reversed by parliament and government.

 Equally worrying is the government’s silence on what interventions are being undertaken to deal with the systematic mismanagement and looting of key Departments.  The Auditor-General reports are continuously ignored to the detriment of the economy and the country.

The Presidency and Treasury need to rethink their business as usual approach and realise that the nation is teetering on the brink of an economic depression. We do not just need new ideas, but we need to execute them with precision and speed.

Issued by COSATU 

For further information please contact: Matthew Parks -COSATU Parliamentary Coordinator

Cell: 082 785 0687 Email: matthew@cosatu.org.za