Durban - The United Association of South Africa (UASA) has called on Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana to be realistic about the challenges South Africans face ahead of the medium-term budget speech on Wednesday.
The trade union urged Godongwana to produce tangible solutions to lift the country out of its economic woes, in a statement on Friday.
UASA spokesperson Abigail Moyo said the economy is in a shambles.
“Service delivery is on the brink of collapse. Unemployment – especially among the youth – is at its highest. Load shedding has become the scourge of businesses and households, while low water security makes a joke of our fundamental right to water and sanitation.”
Moyo said South Africans don’t receive the basic services that the government must provide.
“What is the point of keeping afloat state-owned enterprises (SOEs), departments and a security cluster that is failing its people? UASA demands more than promises from Godongwana. We demand proper, urgent and severe interventions instead of the usual empty words.”
Moyo said the union has witnessed working groups, summits, task teams and commissions one after the other – some of which even “filled us with hope for a limited time” – and none produced viable solutions to our crisis.
“Besides the details that Godongwana will provide on the size, timing and conditions of the Eskom debt relief package on Wednesday, what else will we see? Are there equally detailed plans for unemployment and water challenges on the cards?”
UASA lists demands that it believes Godongwana needs to address:
- “We demand viable solutions to the unemployment crisis.
- We demand sufficient energy to transform technology and industrial operations.
- We demand light for our matrics who start their final exams soon and cannot perform to their full capacity when libraries and homes have blackouts for hours per day. How do we expect them to be the hope of our future?
- We demand a total overhaul of the country’s waterworks by qualified and experienced workers. Without water, we are done.
- UASA demands that Godongwana acts swiftly and decisively in reaction to the water, electricity and unemployment circus we have been reduced to.“
“The time for empty words is over. The time of protecting ANC unity to the disadvantage of South Africans is over. The country needs to be fixed or go under,” said the union.