Mboweni is lying, says Cosatu

Finance Minister Tito Mboweni has been accused of lying to South Africans on Wednesday when said government had consulted with unions on a way forward in dealing with public sector wage restraint.

This follows the announcement of massive cuts in the public sector wage bill planned over the next few years.

Asked whether unions would take any industrial action over the government’s wage bill purge, trade union federation Cosatu spokesperson Sizwe Pamla said were no such talks between the government and public sector unions.

“There is no reason to strike, because he was lying. When he said they were talking to unions to discuss a way forward, there was no such discussion. We are still in a legal dispute which relates to the last agreement of 2018. How could we have moved on to new negotiations with people who have reneged on the agreement which is still a matter before the courts?”

He was referring to the three-year agreement between the government and public sector unions in 2018 to the government’ s offer of an increase of between 6% and 7% in the first year and 6% for the remaining two years.

Union anger at the finance minister was intensified on Wednesday with the announcement of austerity measures to cut government spending by as much as R300 billion over the next few years.

It must have been that the minister was trying to impress creditors and ratings agencies by feigning harmony with the unions in the middle of a court dispute, Pamla suggests.

Earlier, Cosatu parliamentary organiser Matthew Parks spoke out against the planned freezing of salary increases. He said while the federation accepts the wage freeze of senior managers and politicians, any talk of a wage freeze for lowly paid public servants would be regarded as a direct attack on collective bargaining.

”We will only take the government seriously when it reduces the exorbitant salaries and perks of the executive and management at all levels of government, including scrapping the insulting perks afforded to the executive under the Ministerial Hand Book.”

Simnikiweh@citizen.co.za

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