ANC employees vow to strike
THE chairperson of the committee representing ANC staff members, Mvusi Mdala, has painted a grim picture of how the failure by the ruling party to remunerate its employees had adversely affected their lives.
Mdala said the last few months have been tough as some of the staff have lost their houses, been evicted from their homes and have had their cars repossessed, and others were unable to pay their children’s school fees.
Mdala said they were aware that leaders were using the Political Party Funding Act and the pandemic as an excuse for failure to pay their salaries.
“As members of staff, we understand the impact of the act but we are not convinced that we are in this situation because of that; our problems did not start in April when this act came to effect. Since 2018, the party has not been paying our UIF whereas they are deducting money from the employees; there was no party funding then, there was no pandemic.
“We have not received salary increments for the past four years, therefore, we are not buying that excuse. We think there is a problem of financial mismanagement,” he said.
Mdala said they planned to down tools until their demands were met.
ANC chairperson Gwede Mantashe said he worked at Luthuli house for 10 years and there were times when they got their salaries on day 36 or day 42, but they soldiered on because of the fulfilment they derived from the work they were doing for the people.
“Of course when people are not paid, you can’t celebrate that, people must be paid up. The issue is, we are having a situation where they have introduced the party political fund act.
“Political parties from time to time pick up financial challenges because of growing commitments that they may have, things have changed now we have the political funding act; it is because of the economic situation we are now finding ourselves in.
“The treasurer-general is looking at various models and innovative ways of organising resources including crowd-funding,” ANC national spokesperson Pule Mabe said.
He said that salary issues at Luthuli House had been communicated with staff. The party has been battling to pay salaries for a few months, which resulted in a picket last month.