NEHAWU'S RESPONSE TO THE 2015 STATE OF THE NATION ADDRESS
FRIDAY, 13 FEBRUARY, 2015
The National Education Health and Allied Workers Union {NEHAWU} has noted the State of the Nation Address {SONA} delivered by President Jacob Zuma in Parliament yesterday. Whilst we feel that the speech by the president was definite in dealing with the pertinent issues that affect the nation like energy shortage, land reform and rural development. We feel that the president failed to give a coherent programmatic vision of fighting the triple crisis of unemployment, poverty and inequality. The speech also failed to relate to the 2015 January 8th statement of the ANC NEC that made a clear re-commitment to the Freedom Charter.
Whilst the speech gave a correct assessment of what needs to be done and identified the urgent priorities facing the nation, its proposals fall short of providing a radical departure from the current post-apartheid development trajectory. However, despite our reservations about the lack of drastic proposals on government's course of action, we are happy with some of the following:
We are happy with the establishment of a war room by the Cabinet ,to work around the clock with Eskom, to stabilize the electricity supply system and contain the load shedding. Whilst we are not opposed to the allocation of R23 billion to Eskom, to help the company stabilize its finances and help it manage the current period, we expect the power utility to review and moderate the remuneration and packages of its senior managers.
The government's decision to explore the 50/50 policy framework, which proposes relative rights for people ,who live and work on farms starting with the fifty farming enterprises that will be identified as pilot projects has our overwhelming support.We are happy with the new proposed laws, that seek to place a ceiling of 12 000 hectares on land ownership and that prevents foreign nationals to own land in South Africa. We are also fully supportive of the process of establishing the Office of the Valuer-General that will help improve government's land acquisition capacity.
We are happy with the creation of the Mine Crime Combating Forums in the North West, Limpopo, Free State, Mpumalanga, and Gauteng provinces. We also support the efforts to introduce a national minimum wage. Whilst the introduction of a minimum wage has our unwavering support, we call on the Portfolio Committee to stop conducting public hearings in a policy vacuum since there is no base document.
We welcome the nine {9} point plan presented by the president as a way of encouraging economic growth and fast tracking job creation. But we expect more detail from the relevant departments during their budgets votes and also for Treasury to allocate adequate resources for implementation of some of these identified programmes. We warn Treasury to not use these programmes to pursue their privatisation programme. We also warn that the government's voluntary austerity measures inspired by Treasury will derail some of these goals.
Our union is unhappy that some of the key decisions that were taken by the NEC have not found their way to the State of the Nation Address, and the president was silent or failed to account on some of the key promises that were made in the previous SONA's. This is deeply worrying for us because it creates a disjuncture between the positions of the ruling party and those of the state and also makes some of the promises sound hollow in the absence of accountability on implementation.
The ANC NEC directed the government to release the NHI White Paper and expand the rollout of the NHI to new pilot sites. We are therefore unhappy that the president did not re-emphasize this point especially considering the obstructionist role of the Treasury that continues to stall the process. We expected the president to take the nation into confidence on the reasons for the delay of the release of the White Paper. The creeping piecemeal approach in policy initiation on the part of government when it comes to the implementation of the NHI and the veto powers that the Treasury has appropriated to itself are big source of concern.
The ANC 53rd National Conference and the 2015 January 8th, NEC statements were clear on denouncing outsourcing. We are therefore worried that the SONA was quiet on it because if departments are not given a clear instruction, they would otherwise ignore it. The SONA should have explicitly reiterated this especially because outsourcing is still particularly rife at provincial level and it is not only a big source of money wastage but it interferes with service delivery.
The president has also not given an account ,on the process that he announced in his 2013 State of the Nation Address, of appointing a Presidential Remuneration Commission to investigate the appropriateness of the remuneration and conditions of service provided by the State to all its employees. The process is taking too long and we expect the president to push for its finalization, so that we can move on the establishment of a new remuneration policy for the public service. We are also worried that this commission is working in parallel to the ongoing PSCBC consultative remuneration process that is taking place in line with resolution 1 of 2007.
On education, we are worried that not enough was said by the president despite the NEC committing to the increase of the student financial aid, and the Freedom Charter calling for free education. We are happy that new colleges will be built ,but we call for an urgent government intervention that will help rescue most of the TVET colleges that are currently dysfunctional.
Disruption of the SONA
Our union strongly denounces and condemns the disruption of the SONA by the members of the Economic Freedom Fighters {EFF} and the Democratic Alliance {DA}.The loutish interjections and gruesome posturing of these political charlatans and junk demagogues of the EFF and the sanctimonious hypocrites of the DA proves right the majority of South African voters, who rejected them during last year's national general elections.
It is pitiful to see a fascist organisation like EFF that thinks of itself as terribly radical and cutting edge, undermining our democratic institution by indulging in shameless self-advertising and political striptease. Our national democratic institutions were created through the blood and sacrifices of our heroes and heroines, who sacrificed and paid the ultimate prize in the fight against apartheid.
The unity between the right-wingers of the Democratic Alliance and the fascist tenderpreneurs of the EFF, has just proved once and for all to the people of South Africa, that these two opposition parties are politically bankrupt and idea free. They confuse gimmicks with a strategy and are nothing but cynical frauds. We are calling on the ANC to initiate the formulation of laws and rules that will prevent this anarchy being repeated in future. We also call on the people of South African to defend our democratic institutions by voting out these erratic, lazy and puerile moral cretins because they are not fit to represent anyone anywhere. They have exposed themselves to be the two sides of the same coin; they are both swimming in the same political cesspool.
Statement issued by Bereng Soke, NEHAWU General Secretary, February 13 2015
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