Last Wednesday, Cosatu led a united front of SA’s biggest labour federations, marching through our cities to demand mainly four things: ending corruption, salary increases for civil servants, job creation, and an end to women abuse.
Government has been given 14 days to address the demands or face a new reality of a perennial series of strikes.
In themselves, the demands are reasonable. The problem is the legitimacy of the people who are making the demands, particularly Cosatu.
The government from which Cosatu expects action is led by the ANC, a party that has been and continues to be in a political alliance with Cosatu itself.
We must remember that Cosatu president, Zingiswa Losi, who led last week’s march, is a member of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the ANC. Losi attended NEC meetings before she led last week’s march, and she will attend more afterwards. In other words, the public is being fooled.
The mismanagement and decline of our economy have been a cumulative process unfolding over many years. Since 1994, Cosatu has been supporting the same ANC that has brought us to where we are.
Even when Jacob Zuma was looting the state, and thereby destroying the economy, Cosatu told us to leave Msholozi alone.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has told the world that when it comes to corruption, the ANC is “accused No 1”. We know, therefore, that the labour federation's demand No 1 – ending corruption – will not happen.
When some of us screamed like a madman against corruption, we were dismissed as doomsayers who hated the ANC. When we warned society that the ANC would steal until the state ran out of money to pay workers, our warnings were ridiculed as “sound and fury signifying nothing”.
Today it does not matter how many marches Cosatu organises, the SA state is so broke that government employees must not expect a salary increase for the next 20 years. If you are a nurse, a teacher or a police officer, please get the idea of a salary increase out of your mind: the ANC, in collaboration with Cosatu leaders, has stolen all your money. If you think this is alarmist, look at Zimbabwe. Again, workers’ demand No 2 – salary increases – will not happen.
When you loot money from the state and collapse state-owned companies like Eskom, the result is a decline in the economy. The upshot of all this is a shrinkage in the job market.
For more than a decade now, the ANC and its deployed cadres have been milking state-owned companies until they collapsed. We have now reached the critical stage where Eskom can no longer provide electricity to factories. Where was Cosatu as all this was unfolding?
The sad truth is that no sane investor will put his or her money to set up a new factory in SA: where would electricity to power up such a factory come from?
Anyone who thinks that the ANC can create jobs is mad. Look at what the party has done to state-owned companies. Which one of them can create new jobs? In short, Cosatu is mad. Forget about the workers’ demand No. 3 – job creation.
There was a time when, as Thabo Mbeki’s deputy in government, Jacob Zuma was responsible for moral regeneration in SA.
While performing this critical role, he was busy having sex with HIV-positive women without a condom, trusting the power of a shower. One of Zuma’s wives also committed suicide, leaving a note that exposed the moral hollowness of the top leadership of the ANC.
Anyone who thinks the ANC is morally qualified to end women abuse must look at individual leaders of the ANC – from tigers to the man at the top. Again, Cosatu is mad.
What, then, is the conclusion? Simple: the recent march was a waste of time and a ploy engineered by Cosatu leaders who realise that society can see that they too are naked.
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