SA needs more civil servants, not fewer – Saftu

The South African Federation of Trade Unions has demanded more civil servants for the country and says the announcement by Gauteng Health MEC Gwen Ramokgopa that her department is facing a “critical shortage of skilled nursing personnel” proved this point.

Saftu, the second biggest union federation in the country with over 800 000 members, says Ramokgopa’s revelation was shocking.

The federation was reacting to a report that a circular despatched to hospitals in Gauteng had directed for the filling of only 50% of vacant funded posts occupied by retired, resigned and deceased nursing staff.

“This story sums up everything that is wrong with South African society. At a time when 8.7 million people are unemployed, and the unemployment rate among young people aged 15–34, by the expanded figure, is a staggering 63.8%, there is a “critical shortage” of workers in a vital public service. On the same day Gauteng department of roads and transport spokeswoman, Melitah Madiba, confirmed that 507 vacant and unfunded posts had been abolished as they were in excess of requirements, and said the posts had not been filled in the last five years,” Saftu said.

The federation said the two stories explode the argument that South Africa’ public service is “bloated”. It also contrary to a statement by then finance minister Pravin Gordhan in his October 2017 medium-term budget policy statement that Treasury is looking at a reduction of about 25 000 public servants over the next three years.

“The ANC government has is priorities totally skewed. It is obsessed with placating the credit-rating agencies and their big business clients who demand austerity measures to cut public spending at a time when South Africans are crying out for more spending and more staff to improve the appalling level of service in all areas of society. The Esidimeni scandal in which at least 144 mentally ill patients were left to die as a result of budget cuts and a lack of staff should have been a wake-up call to shock government into employing more qualified nurses and carers. But nothing has changed, as this admission by Ramokgopa proves,” the federation said.

Ramokgopa reportedly told a nurses’ seminar that the health department is operating on a staff establishment based on the provincial population of 2006, when there were 4.8 million fewer people.

Saftu said the number of nursing posts was based on a population of 9.5 million in 2006, but that population had “grown to an estimated 14.278 million over the past 12 years without any upward adjustment”.

It said health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi had himself admitted that the public health system was seriously “distressed”‚ with shortages of medical and nursing staff in state hospitals and a huge number of sick patients with HIV‚ diabetes‚ TB or cancer.

“It is not just in health that there is a desperate need of more, not fewer public servants. As at June 2017, South Africa had a total of 15 888 teacher vacancies, and has more than 5 000 under-qualified or unqualified teachers which it cannot eliminate because of a tremendous shortage of qualified teachers. All other public services face similar problems and are the reason why so many communities have been protesting, often violently, at the abysmal level of service provision.

“The government tries to blame all these problems on the crisis in the economy, and pressure from credit ratings agencies and big business to cut public spending, especially on workers’ wages, and argue that there is no money available to fill these posts and provide proper services. This ignores the fact that the main reasons for the economic crisis include dysfunctional services, especially in key areas like education, health and transport infrastructure and the high levels of unemployment,” Saftu said.

It said structural deficiencies must be addressed, including the transformation of the country’s social infrastructure to become one of the key components of the new economic growth strategy, the review of the corporate tax that had dropped from 45 percent during apartheid to 28 percent under democracy, and review of personal tax so that those who could afford to pay more contributed more to the fiscus, and the capping of salaries of the low income-earners.

“At the heart of the crisis is the overall capitalist mode of production and the theft of the surplus wealth created by the workers by a super-rich capitalist elite, who then refuse to reinvest that surplus in productive, job-creating businesses and vital public services but spirit it away into tax havens through illicit capital transfers. Unless these structural deficiencies are addressed we are going to see even higher unemployment, poverty and inequality and even worse levels of service delivery in vital public institutions,” Saftu said.

The federation has invited working class organisations to a Working-Class Summit on 21-22 July. The gathering is expected to be attended by civil society formations, employed and unemployed worker, the informal sector representatives, students, the landless and the homeless, among others.

– ericn@citizen.co.za

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