SAMWU Congratulates ANC on Election Victory

11 May 2019

SAMWU Congratulates ANC on Election Victory

The South African Municipal Workers’ Union (SAMWU) congratulates the ANC on winning the 2019 General Elections, we also thank South Africans who headed the call to fulfill their patriotic duty and braced different kinds of weather conditions and cast their votes. We further congratulate the IEC for having conducted these elections which have been hailed as free and fair by observers albeit little hiccups which we believe have been adequately addressed by the Commission.

We are pleased that the ANC retained all 8 provinces it governed in the 5th administration and are particularly pleased that the hotly contested Gauteng province was also retained as this was where all parties were focusing and directing their energies with the hope of bringing the ANC below 50% in order to form a coalition government without the ANC.

In congratulating the ANC, we should be concerned that its majority had been reduced in all provinces and nationally, this coupled with the decline in voter turnout. This is a clear sign that there is much dissatisfaction among South African voters, in particular traditional ANC voters. This calls for a need for introspection, listening and addressing voter concerns in order to increase majority and return to government in the coming elections.

The time is now to deliver on the promises made to the electorate, and fully implementing the election manifesto. The time is now to deliver services to South Africans and return the confidence and trust that the people have always had in the ANC-led government. Now that the time for politicking and campaigning is over, we trust that government will prioritize service delivery and workers.

South African workers want to see the immediate implementation of the National Health Insurance (NHI), they also want the implementation of completely free higher education for all students as this will indirectly be the single largest salary increase for workers.

As we work towards 2021 Local Government elections, we trust that the 6th administration will prioritize municipalities as the sphere of government which is in the coalface of service delivery but long been overlooked.

The country’s municipalities are expected to deliver services to the almost 60 million South Africans on only 9% of government expenditure. We therefore urge the new administration that municipalities should receive a fairer equitable share so to ensure that South Africans receive quality services from municipalities.

We further urge the new administration to ensure that they prioritize and speed up the process of absorbing Extended Public Works Programme (EPWP) workers as permanent employees of municipalities. We cannot continue with programmes such as EPWP which are exploitative in nature and do not fundamentally change the lives of workers.

We further urge the 6th administration to continue on the work of the 5th administration in strengthening municipalities as they are in serious problems which are largely financial in nature.
We trust that the President will live up to the promise he made in his 2018 State of the Nation that cabinet will be trimmed and redirect these much-needed resources towards the delivery of services, equipping workers and better remunerating them.

Issued by SAMWU Secretariat

Koena Ramotlou
General Secretary
(073 254 9394)

Or

Dumisani Magagula
Deputy General Secretary
(084 806 4005)

Or

Papikie Mohale
National Media Officer
(073 710 0356)