The Democratic Alliance (DA) says they are “disgusted” by the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union’s (Nehawu) plan to capture crisis relief funds.
DA MP Leon Schreiber said in a statement on Wednesday: “The DA is repulsed by the level of selfishness displayed by Nehawu at a time of national crisis.
“In the midst of this ANC lockdown crisis, Nehawu has conclusively demonstrated to South Africans that they are prepared to doom millions of people in the productive private sector to destitution, just to further add to the ill-gotten gains of incompetent ANC cadres in the public service.”
Schreiber said the DA’s “disgust” came after the union demanded that the government must hijack the relief funds it planned to borrow from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other institutions on Tuesday.
He said according to the government, the relief fund that amounted to R500 billion would pay salary increases to Nehawu members in the public service.
“This is nothing less than a treacherous public call for state capture, as Nehawu wants money meant to support ailing businesses and starving communities to be redirected into the pockets of ANC cadres in the public service, who have already received salary increases amounting to 66% above inflation over the past decade, while ANC policies caused the private sector to crumble,” he said.
Schreiber said Nehawu’s call to further feather their own nests comes at a time when the “ANC lockdown crisis was further destroying the livelihoods of millions of owners and workers in the private sector”.
“The irrational product bans and racist BBBEE regulations put in place by President Cyril Ramaphosa’s totalitarian national coronavirus command council (NCCC) is forcing thousands of enterprises out of business, and condemning millions of hardworking private-sector workers to a life of poverty.
“Not satisfied with this scale of devastation in the private sector, Nehawu thought it wise to add insult to injury by demanding that the government take food off the tables of productive private-sector workers to instead feed the incompetent union fat-cats in the bloated public sector,” he added.
Schreiber said the DA will be writing a letter to Public Service and Administration Minister Senzo Mchunu to register their “disgust over Nehawu’s plan to capture the lockdown crisis funds”.
“Instead of stealing from productive private companies, we also reiterate our call that the government must freeze the wages of all managers and administrators in the public service, and reduce by a third the number of unproductive ANC-linked millionaire managers paid using taxpayer’s money,” he concluded.
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(Compiled by Molefe Seeletsa)
