Ramaphosa asked to sort out delays in social security plan

A FIGHT between the Treasury and the Social Development Department is delaying the release of a comprehensive social security plan for the country, Cosatu claims.

The federation is now calling on Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa to sort out the matter, warning that because of the Treasury’s lack of delivery, it cannot support changes to retirement savings that will stop workers from having full access to their money.

The government has missed its deadline to release the plan by June. It is supposed to be a joint effort by the Treasury and Social Development Department and has been on the cards for more than a decade.

Cosatu president S’dumo Dlamini said yesterday that the federation did not know why the state had once again failed to produce the plan.

Workers suffer

“It did not happen by the end of June. There is no answer except that it will come,” he said.

General secretary Bheki Ntshalintshali said the federation was aware that it was being delayed by fighting between the government departments and as a result “it is workers who are suffering”.

The hardened stance from the Treasury does not come as a surprise as it has said in the past on a number of occasions that the country could not afford to implement this plan.

But Cosatu has accused the Treasury of delaying tactics and warned that it was now seeking a “new mandate” from workers on policies which it believed were not to their benefit.

This includes rejecting a deadline of March 1, 2018, that was set by Parliament for the finalisation of the new tax amendment act. The implementation has already been postponed for two years as Cosatu is unhappy with certain aspects of the law on annuitisation and preservation.

“This decision was taken after government failed to present the comprehensive social security paper at Nedlac (National Economic Development and Labour Council) for discussions.

“This failure means that we have lost time to engage on the agreed matters. The workers no longer recognise the agreement as we demand that a new arrangement be made that will be conditional on government’s presentation of the… paper and also satisfying other conditions on this issue,” said Ntshalintshali.

There is a major push by labour and community groups for a comprehensive social security plan at Nedlac. The reason is that they believe the introduction of a national minimum wage for workers no longer being allowed to have full access to their pensions when they resign or retire cannot happen in isolation of ensuring that South Africans no longer live in dire poverty.

The Treasury could not be reached for comment.

Cosatu accused the Treasury of delaying tactics and warned it was now seeking a “new mandate”.