SACP blames failure to pay staff salaries on Covid outbreak

Faced with financial woes, which have led to months of being unable to pay its workers’ salaries, the SA Communist Party (SACP) has blamed the internal crisis on the impact of the Covid outbreak.

This after the Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) launched a scathing attack on the SACP , saying it was “totally unacceptable that the leaders of the SACP sit in parliament, collect exorbitant salaries, pass our labour laws and then proceed to disregard them” by not looking after the interests of staff.    

Refraining from responding to Cosatu charges, SACP spokesperson Alex Mashilo, said: “We will do so in an appropriate manner at an appropriate time.

“After the advent of Covid-19 – when there were massive retrenchments in the economy, closure of many sectors and unemployment rising – the SACP was directly affected.

“Its main source of stable revenue, membership levies and contributions, declined as its membership increasingly reflected the national unemployment crisis.

“There were months when the SACP could not pay salaries in full, but paid medical aid and provident funds.

“This was after consultation and agreement with staff, was reached. Four months were affected.

“In this environment, the control of capital lies outside the hands of the working-class.

“There are many staff members who are in their own right as SACP activists, doing their best to help the party to overcome the situation.”

ALSO READ: Cosatu calls on SACP to pay outstanding staff salaries immediately

A political analyst on Tuesday said SACP leaders who earned huge salaries and perks as Cabinet ministers, should be devoting their energies on the SACP programme at party headquarters.

Failure by the SACP to pay its staff salaries, a development which has annoyed Cosatu – a political ally in the Tripartite Alliance – comes in the wake of a similar fiasco at the ANC Luthuli House headquarters, which in recent months, led to protests over non-payment of worker wages.

Dr Ntsikelelo Breakfast from the department of history and political studies at the Nelson Mandela University, warned that failure by the SACP to pay staff salaries reflected “a leadership void in the party, due to senior leaders immersed themselves in government affairs”.

Said Breakfast: “This is a contradiction in many respects – an exploitation of workers by communists, who are supposed to be fighting a capitalist system, to usher in a new order.

“Being the vanguard of the working class, the SACP should be providing an ideological direction to Cosatu and not the other way.

“Now you have a reversal of roles – a child in the form of Cosatu, ordering the parent in the form of the SACP, to do the right thing by paying staff salaries.

“Leaders like (SA Federation of Trade Unions general secretary) Zwelinzima Vavi and (National Union of Metalworkers of SA general secretary) Irvin Jim once raised the issue of a leadership void in the party, when most SACP leaders opted to devote their energies to government affairs, instead of serving the people.

“The role of the SACP is to overthrow a capitalist system and usher in a new socialist order.”

Independent political analyst Dr Ralph Mathekga said the SACP-Cosatu tension over staff salaries was “worrying”.

“They ought to have resolved this matter internally as they belong to the same alliance and work together on such things.

“It is a travesty that the SACP – the vanguard of the workers – has been unable to pay workers,” said Mathekga.

Calling on the SACP to pay its workers “what is due to them, immediately”, Cosatu national spokesperson Sizwe Pamla said it was “totally unacceptable that the leaders of the SACP sit in parliament, collect exorbitant salaries, pass our labour laws and then proceed to disregard them”. 

“The fact that the deputy chairperson of the SACP is the minister for employment and labour and the custodian of our labour laws is scandalous.

“This tells employers across the economy that they don’t need to bother with respecting workers’ rights and abiding by our labour laws,” said Pamla. 

The SACP will be holding its 15^th national elective congress in July.

-brians@citizen.co.za