EFF, Cosatu vow to prevent use of workers’ retirement funds to continue state capture
OPPOSITION parties and labour federation Cosatu are fuming and threatening to derail the alleged plans to loot the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) and claims that chief executive Daniel Matjila could be pushed out tomorrow.
Yesterday the EFF and Cosatu came out guns blazing, warning that they were aware there was a plan to use workers’ hard-earned money to bail out state-owned enterprises (SOEs) captured by the politically connected family.
Cosatu spokesperson Sizwe Pamla said that although the union was not aware of tomorrow’s board meeting where Matjila’s fate would be sealed, the federation knew of plans by Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba to use workers’ money to bail out what he referred to as “captured entities”.
This, Pamla said, included the financially beleaguered SAA and troubled Eskom.
Pamla reiterated the organisation’s position to fight “the state capture fuelled by the Guptas” and added that the controversial family were on the union’s radar in order to protect workers’ retirement funds.
“When Gigaba was at the central executive committee, he gave a presentation. After that presentation we discussed, and the chief executive said: ‘No, we are not going to allow him to bail out SAA with workers’ savings under its current leadership.’
“This is because this current leadership is corrupt and cannot account for a lot of activities that have taken place at SAA. For workers’ retirement savings to be utilised, we need a situation where, first, the people implicated in state capture will be charged and prosecuted.
“To hear that there are attempts to use workers’ retirement savings, again, to continue with the looting, we believe that this is a pop in the eye for the workers, which is something that we will deal with as soon as we have all the relevant information.”
The EFF claimed that the mooted plan by Gigaba to give SAA a R6 billion bailout from the PIC was an example of how the SOE would be used to rescue entities milked by the Guptas.
“The EFF condemns the continuing destabilisation of the PIC by the National Treasury. Since their appointment (Gigaba and Deputy Minister of Finance Sifiso Buthelezi), there have been several illegal and undoubtedly wrong directives given to the PIC,” their statement read.
ANC spokesperson Zizi Kodwa said the party was not aware of attempts to capture the PIC.
“We generally don’t get involved in appointments of boards; we leave that to the shareholder,” he said.