COGTA workers protest: “Our kids survive on pap and tea”

Article originally published on GroundUp By Chris Gilili

• Hundreds of Community Work Programme (CWP) workers marched to the ANC headquarters in Johannesburg on Monday.
• They are demanding higher wages, more working days and permanent employment.
• Last week CWP workers employed by the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA), spent two days outside the head office in Pretoria, demanding to be paid their R880 monthly stipend for April.

Hundreds of Community Work Programme (CWP) workers marched to ANC headquarters in Johannesburg on Monday to hand over a memorandum of demands.

Last week workers picketed for days outside the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs’ (COGTA) head office in Pretoria.

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They were demanding the payment of their R880 monthly stipend for April, among other issues. COGTA blamed the payment delay on challenges moving the programme from the implementing agent, whose contract ended in March.

On Monday the workers, led by the Maanda Ashu Workers Union of South Africa (MAWUSA), braved the cold weather to march from Mary Fitzgerald Square in Newtown chanting liberation slogans.

They want the ruling ANC to direct the Minister of Labour to increase workers’ stipends. They also want full-time employment for CWP workers and up to 20 days of work per month, among other things.

Nomsa Magangane from Lawley told GroundUp that she is a single mother with five children and that the R880 stipend is only enough to cover a week’s worth of expenses in her home.

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COGTA WORKERS PROTEST FOR HIGHER WAGES, MORE WORKING DAYS AND PERMANENT EMPLOYMENT.

“This money only buys basic food, like maize meal, cooking oil, flour and then it’s finished. I also have to buy electricity. We are pleading for more,” she said.

Palesa Motloiwa from Kagiso said, “I have been working as a CWP worker since 2010. This R880 is very little, honestly. I cover funeral policies and food on this little money. My policies lapse every month because I cannot afford them. We feel enslaved. All we ask is for the government to think for us as well.”

Thabisile Mzobe from Tembisa said, “We close potholes in Ekurhuleni so that people’s cars can move, but there are municipal workers who should do that. We also unblock drains. I have been working since 2012. It is serious hard labour. At least if they can extend our days or the hours we work, so that we earn better.

“R880 cannot hold a family. Our kids survive on pap and tea,” she said.

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MAWUSA secretary general Velaphi Ndaba said: “The ANC is failing its people.” The people on the CWP were “living in squalor, said Ndaba. “As a union, we cannot sit and allow that.”

Ndaba said, “If the government won’t listen to us, we will meet them in the elections.”

Mandla Qwabe, an ANC leader, accepted the memo and promised to give it to the office of the secretary general. “The union will receive our response within two weeks. We’re aware that the government has committed itself to better people’s lives. If we’re failing to do that, you have a right to come to us,” said Qwabe.

He said they will arrange a meeting with MAWUSA leadership and ANC secretary general Fikile Mbalula soon.