‘No more excuses’: Cosatu urges Ramaphosa to tackle unemployment, crime and growth crisis in SONA
Cosatu says President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address must offer concrete solutions to South Africa’s soaring unemployment, weak economic growth and rising crime.
Image: File.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) says President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) must deliver decisive action to pressing challenges, including high unemployment, sluggish economic growth, poverty, inequality, rampant crime and corruption.
Ramaphosa will deliver his SONA under the Government of National Unity (GNU) on February 12, following the formation of the coalition government after the May 2024 general elections.
The African National Congress (ANC), which had governed since 1994, lost its parliamentary majority and subsequently joined forces with former rivals, including the Democratic Alliance (DA) and the Freedom Front Plus.
Cosatu parliamentary coordinator Matthew Parks said it was fundamental that the government responds decisively to the needs of the working class and society at large.
“SONA and the government’s plans for the year must be anchored in tackling our dangerously high unemployment rate of 42.4%, sluggish 1% economic growth, entrenched poverty and inequality, and endemic crime and corruption,” Parks said.
Cosatu said it welcomes the progress made by the ANC-led government, Eskom and municipal workers in addressing the electricity crisis and reducing loadshedding.
The federation forms part of the tripartite alliance alongside the ANC and the South African Communist Party (SACP).
“It is critical that further support be given to reducing the increasingly unaffordable price of electricity,” Parks said.
He said making electricity affordable required moving all consumers to prepaid billing, decisively addressing the R100 billion municipal debt, rooting out corruption and wasteful expenditure, and enabling Eskom to expand into renewable energy.
Parks said positive turnarounds at Transnet and Metrorail must be accelerated, including reducing Transnet’s debt burden, fast-tracking infrastructure investment and strengthening security to protect commuters and property.
“Efficient rail and port systems are key to thousands of mining, manufacturing and agricultural jobs, and to providing 10 million urban commuters with affordable and reliable transport,” he said.
He added that decisive turnaround plans were needed for struggling state-owned enterprises, particularly Denel, the South African Broadcasting Corporation, the Post Office and Postbank, which continue to suffer from weak and incompetent management.
Cosatu has called on President Cyril Ramaphosa to use his State of the Nation Address to confront South Africa’s deepening unemployment crisis, weak economic growth and entrenched corruption.
Image: Presidency
Parks called on the government to end what he described as failed neo-liberal austerity policies and to adequately fund frontline public services so they can meet their constitutional and developmental mandates.
“The turnaround at the South African Revenue Service (SARS) and South African Airways shows that public institutions with competent leadership, filled vacancies, critical skills, modern infrastructure and the removal of corrupt elements can deliver quality services and generate the revenue the state needs,” he said.
He said particular attention must be given to defending and implementing National Health Insurance as the pathway to universal healthcare.
“The deteriorating state of many municipalities must ring alarm bells and be met with decisive action, including removing corrupt leaders, restoring services and ensuring workers’ salaries and third-party deductions are paid,” Parks said.
He added that interventions must be extended to all dysfunctional municipalities, with a new municipal funding model urgently finalised.
Eskom, Sanral and the Department of Water and Sanitation should also be deployed to support the delivery of essential services and infrastructure, he said.
“South Africa can no longer afford to treat criminals with kid gloves or allow violent crime to become the norm, especially in working-class communities,” Parks said, calling for an aggressive Marshall Plan led by the president.
Parks said law enforcement agencies - particularly the South African Police Service (SAPS), National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) and the judiciary - required strong leadership, the filling of critical vacancies, the recruitment of specialised skills, the removal of corrupt officials and major investment in infrastructure and technology.
“To win this war, the same decisive leadership, mobilisation of resources and collective ownership shown during the Covid-19 pandemic is required,” he said.
Parks said a bold economic stimulus package, drawing on resources from the fiscus, development finance institutions and private financial institutions, was long overdue to support industrialisation, exports, small businesses, infrastructure development and job creation.
He said tax incentives and rebates should be used to boost local procurement, while relief packages must be introduced for workers and businesses affected by global trade disruptions, including fixing the Unemployment Insurance Fund’s Temporary Employment Relief Scheme.
Parks said support for the poor and unemployed must be strengthened, including increasing the Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant to the food poverty line and expanding the Presidential Employment Stimulus to one million young people by April 1 and two million by November 2026.
Other public employment programmes should be overhauled to comply with the national minimum wage and ensure participants gain skills and experience leading to permanent work or entrepreneurship, Parks said.
Soaring unemployment, weak economic growth and rising crime are among the key challenges Cosatu wants President Cyril Ramaphosa to confront in his State of the Nation Address.
Image: File
He added that the government must work with social partners to reform the Unemployment Insurance Fund and the Compensation Fund, and ensure the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration has sufficient resources to protect workers’ rights.
Cosatu also called for intensified labour inspections, including the employment of 20,000 new inspectors, to enforce labour laws.
Parks said SARS had improved tax compliance from 61% to 67% and should be resourced to raise compliance to 75% over the next three years, generating an additional R200 billion in revenue.
He said SARS should also conduct lifestyle audits on high-wealth individuals, including public representatives and senior state officials.
“We welcome the green shoots emerging after state capture, but we cannot normalise anaemic 1% growth or the ticking time bomb of 42.4% unemployment,” Parks said.
He said decisive government action was required to achieve economic growth of more than 3%, reduce unemployment and restore hope.
“There are no shortcuts, and the patience of the working class and society is not limitless,” he added.
simon.majadibodu@iol.co.za
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