‘We may up the tempo’: ANC staff picket outside Luthuli House over unpaid salaries

Some African National Congress (ANC) staff members have yet again protested over the non-payment of salaries.

Disgruntled staff members picketed outside the ANC’s headquarters at Albert Luthuli House, in Johannesburg, on Monday singing “silambile” (We’re hungry).

The workers have not been paid for August, while others are still owed salaries from two months ago.

“What worsens things is that some of our members who have not been paid their salaries that come as far as July. They have not been paid for August and there are no signs that they will be paid for the month of September as well. And that concerns us.

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“That is why we are here. In the main, we are trying to put pressure on the leadership to give this matter a priority,” ANC staff representative Mandla Qwabe told JacarandaNews on Monday.

Qwabe also said protests would be intensified if ANC failed to pay their salaries.

“We will tell [the management] that if these matters are not resolved with the agreed timelines, we will have to up the tempo. [We will] fully withdraw labour until these matters are resolved, but that has to be a decision informed by what happens in our engagements, but also it must be supported by the general staff of the ANC,” he continued.

ANC spokesperson Pule Mabe’s explanation why the governing party could not guarantee its staff will be paid on time in the future was criticised by the public.

“If the ANC was running a cash-in-transit heist, then it would say: ‘No, we know the robberies we’re going to be conducting in the next two months will give us enough’.

“The ANC depends on the people. It is the trust of those people and once the people renew their love, trust and confidence in the ANC and start to reinvest their resource, we will be able to sustain this organisation of Nelson Mandela,” Mabe said at the time.

The workers, who threatened the ANC with legal action, have embarked on similar protests in the few months, recently during the party’s gala dinner and national policy conference held in July this year.

The staff had previously accused the ANC’s leadership of making UIF and medical aid deductions from their salaries, but not paying them over to the relevant entities.

The Citizen previously reported that the ANC owes R17 million to the South African Revenue Service (Sars) for unpaid taxes and Pay As You Earn (PAYE) tax.

The party’s treasurer-general Paul Mashatile blamed the new Political Party Funding Act for ANC’s financial struggles.

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