The first day of the ANCnational general council(NGC) has been marred by Luthuli House staff picketing over non-payment of their salaries. Leaders and members of the ANC, including its president Cyril Ramaphosa, were confronted by staff members holding up placards and singing struggle songs as they drove into the Birchwood Hotel on the East Rand for the NGC. The staff sang songs such asSilwela Amalungelo Ethu(we are fighting for our rights) as motorcades of senior party leaders drove into the venue.
The disgruntled staff only started receiving their salaries this week in what ANC treasurer-general Gwen Ramokgopa said would be a “staggered” payment system. Some of the placards stated Luthuli House had not paid over their provident fund and medical aid money despite their constant contribution. Staff are also worried that their festive season was likely to be a bleak one, as the ANC’s financial status is seemingly deteriorating.
Representative of the staff, Dan Semenya, who serves as the deputy secretary of Nehawu in the Luthuli House branch, said some staff had complained that their children could not get their end-of-year reports as the schools withheld them over non-payment. Semenya said though salaries have started trickling in, they believed it was still necessary to picket outside the NGC to send a message of their displeasure. Comrades, the ANC cannot deviate from its character of being a caring organisation when it is not simply being able to deal with issues relating to their workers “The reason we picket today [Monday] at the NGC doorstep is on the simple basis that the NGC consists of branches, regions and provinces.
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This is a bigger platform of the leadership of the ANC at different levels. We are appealing to their conscience to say: comrades, the ANC cannot deviate from its character of being a caring organisation when it is not simply being able to deal with issues relating to their workers,” he said. At the heart of the picket is a concern about non-payment of their provident fund contributions, which directly affects their pension, he said.
Semenya said this was not a new problem in the ANC as they staged the same picket outside the policy conference in 2022. “As it stands now, it has been more than six months since our provident fund money has been paid in, and in that case, our contributions are being deducted from us — and that affects our future in our pension. On the issue of medical aid, in recent weeks we had our members going to doctors and when they arrive there, it’s only when they are told your membership has been suspended.” The ANC had also failed to communicate in advance that there would be late payment of salaries and staff were therefore unable to make prior arrangements, he said.
“Our point is that we may be understanding of the issues that relate to finances in the ANC. However, the problem relates to how badly the leadership or management communicates these issues to us because if those things were attended to prior, we would be readily prepared in what is confronting us. These issues have been there and we feel there is not much being done to address the problems that relate to workers.”
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