Challenges facing Alliance in North West

30-07-07

 

Cosatu North West press statement in response the challenges facing the ANC and the operation of the Alliance

The Congress of South African Trade Unions in the North West province has urged the ANC leadership in the North West to be honest to the ordinary members of the ANC, the poor and the working class, who are also members of the ANC. The ANC leadership's continuing the denial that there are divisions in the ANC, which affect the operation of the alliance, will not assist anybody, including the ANC itself.

COSATU has made a submission to the ANC through the alliance structures to discuss the divisions in the ANC, which have affected the alliance since the 2006 local government election preparations, when we were called names such as arrogant, workerist, opportunist and being Zuma supporters. We were told that the issues of the ANC divisions belong to the ANC only and have nothing to do with Cosatu. The ANC is forgetting that the majority of ANC members in the North West are workers who belong to Cosatu.

The dictatorial approach by certain individual leaders of the ANC has managed to turn the ANC into their own personal movement, which is no longer defending the national democratic revolution to the benefit of the poor communities. The ANC in the province belongs to some few people in government, business and some who are advocating their own personal interests in belonging to the capitalist class in the near future.

Our members in the municipalities are under threat, due to divisions in the municipalities. As we speak today over 100 municipal workers who were employed as 'contract' workers for over three years are being dismissed e.g:

  • ± 60 workers in the municipality of Mafikeng.
  • In Ventersdorp municipality 49 workers are being dismissed and other municipalities' workers are being charged for dismissal cases for nothing.
  • In Matlosana municipality, 29 workers were dismissed in 2006 and only 8 reinstated, due to their good relationship with some individual bureaucrats and politicians. Today workers are dismissed every day for no reason.
  • In Madibeng our members are also dismissed due to the poor relationship with councillors and some officials, and through the privatisation of government or municipal services.

Cosatu calls on the municipalities and SALGA North West to:

 

Ø Mafikeng - 60 workers.

Ø Matlosana - 21 workers, including those who have been dismissed recently.

Ø Ventersdorp - all 49 workers.

Ø Madibeng - all workers dismissed, including those dismissed for no reasons and in the privatised areas.

COSATU is busy mobilising its members in all municipalities in the province to defend their rights and fight for quality jobs and end poverty, including proper employment of staff, from senior managers to lower staff.

Many people in the government have resigned and some are shifted from their positions to others. Municipalities are controlled by some individuals in the ANC, e.g. through the employment of municipal managers and other senior positions. Members of the legislature are shifted from their own initial positions. Therefore the issue of the removal of the deputy speaker and MEC of Agriculture did not come by surprise; it is their plan to do so to those that it is alleged that are not in the same camp as them.

COSATU in the province once again wants to confirm that we respect any elected leader, including the current ANC provincial leadership in North West province.

We therefore call on the ANC leadership to respect the policies, constitutional structures and sub-structures that are put in place to guide the operations of the ANC and the rest of the alliance in the country.

It is reported that the alliance in the province is intact. We as the federation are confirming that, yes, there is programme of meetings of the alliance secretariat, and ten asides and full alliance meetings. But up to today not a single one of the decisions or recommendations of those structures has been implemented.

It is just on paper that there is an integrated programme, e.g. ANC sub-committees, such as the deployment committee, have been restricted to some individuals in the ANC leadership, and in the rest of the sub-committees there is not a single one where Cosatu has been invited. It remains a dictatorship of the ANC in all ANC sub-structures, so that it benefits the so-called supporters of certain individual leaders in the ranks of the ANC.

COSATU calls upon the ANC, its structures in the North West to:

  • Discuss fully with alliance structures on challenges facing the ANC which are affecting the operation of the alliance in the province.
  • Fully respect the discussions of the alliance and its decisions nationally and provincially.
  • The ANC Secretary General, and the national alliance, to intervene in the ANC and its alliance operations in the province.
  • The ANC nationally to investigate in full the ANC operations including the employment of municipal managers in all district and local municipalities.

Once again we remind the ANC that Cosatu members are also ANC members. Therefore any political decisions in the province affect the poor and the working class.

For more information please feel free to consult Cosatu North West Provincial Secretary Comrade Solly Phetoe on 082 304 4055