Cape Town - The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) said it hoped that the ANC would make use of its 111th anniversary to reflect on the government’s increasing inability to grow the economy, fix the load shedding crisis and reduce unemployment and poverty in South Africa.
The anniversary celebrations are set to take place in the Free State this weekend.
The event is marked to drum up support for the main January 8 statement, which is expected to take place at the Dr Petrus Molemela Stadium, also in Bloemfontein, on Sunday.
Cosatu national spokesperson, Sizwe Pamla said they expected immediate solutions.
“The ANC is increasingly presiding over a nation that is politically unstable, that experiences periodical rioting, suffers from rampant crime levels and is hungrier with a high-disease burden.
“The ANC needs to be worried by its failure to mobilise and unite our people, particularly the black majority around the project of non-racialism and non-sexism, and, more precisely, around nation-building.
“South African workers expect a solid political and economic programme to kickstart the economy and accelerate economic transformation.
The ANC’s January 8 statement should take forward the progressive policy elements that came out of the Policy Conference.
We expect the ANC NEC to come out with urgent solutions to address the scourge of poverty and degradation that exist side-by-side with lavish wealth.”
Pamla said that they expected to see various measures to crack down on “corruption and defeat the predatory elite”.
“The NEC needs to deal decisively with the escalation of ill-discipline and the entrenchment of alien organisational practices, crass materialism, and the politics of patronage in provinces.
“The ANC NEC needs to tackle, arrest, and reverse the negative tendencies that have eroded, and threaten to erode, the political integrity and moral standing of the ANC in the eyes of society,” said Pamla.
ANC chairperson Gwede Mantashe said: “Cosatu addressed the conference.
“Now we are discussing recommendations from the commission. These are looking at possible solutions.
“The federation must be part of finding solutions to the problems facing society.”
South African Communist Party (SACP) Western Cape Provincial Secretary Benson Ngqentsu said the conference outcomes needed to be frank about domestic policy failures, tackling state capture and other forms of corruption.
“South Africa needs equitably shared growth as opposed to the capitalist bosses taking the lion's share of the growth through profits, while the workers are left with peanut wages and are unable to cope with the ever-rising costs of living.
“South Africa needs a change in the macro-economic framework to support industrialisation and a caring social policy, not least a universal basic income grant.
“Solving the electricity generation crisis and ending load shedding is essential and urgent.
“We hope the ANC conference outcomes will cover these imperatives,” he said.
Cape Times