Cosatu cries foul over Asian workers

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) is angered and offended by reports that a Chinese state company, CBMI Construction, has been allowed to bring in hundreds of workers into SA to upgrade a cement plant for PPC, the union federation said on Thursday.

This comes after PPC, the largest cement producer in the country, in 2015, awarded CBMI a tender to add a new R1.2bn kiln at the group’s Slurry cement plant in North West.

The Chinese company brought in about 242 workers to build the project. Cosatu said it was alleged these workers had been in SA since October 2015 and would work on the project until 2018. Cosatu did not reveal the source of this information.

“The federation is calling on the Department of Labour to investigate this matter and take steps to correct this travesty,” Cosatu spokesman Sizwe Pamla said on Thursday.

Cosatu was challenging the government “to act ... to confront Chinese companies and close the loopholes they are exploiting and prove that they are not prepared to allow China to become this country’s new colonial overlord”.

Siobhan McCarthy, PPC’s GM of communication, said the company was employing more than 400 South Africans at its cement plant near Mafikeng.

“Following a tender process, PPC awarded the contract to construct an extension to the cement plant to CBMI. PPC is satisfied CBMI has complied with regulations and protocols in relation to the labour employed on the project, which includes both local labour and scarce skills sourced abroad,” McCarthy said.

PPC executive for projects Leon du Plessis said during a visit to the Slurry plant this week that the group had a long association with CBMI.

The South African Institution of Civil Engineering and Consulting Engineers SA have complained about Cuban water and sanitation engineers in SA.

There have also been violent demonstrations against specialist Thai welders being employed in the building of Eskom’s new Medupi power station.