Durban — The Congress Of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), the South African Communist Party (SACP) and South African Municipal Workers Union (Samwu) in KwaZulu-Natal have lamented the economic challenges facing children and civil servants in the country.
In a joint media briefing held by the socialist groupings in Durban on Wednesday, they said, in the face of severe economic conditions, they were extremely worried about the future of the children in the country. Cosatu and the SACP said child poverty was still more prevalent, deeper and more severe in rural areas of the province.
“Nearly two-thirds of children identified as poor live in rural areas. Its rural face is the most prominent feature of child poverty in South Africa, and this especially applies when the depth and severity of poverty are considered.The rural poor are further below this poverty line than the urban poor, and the share of the rural child poverty headcount thus rises as the poverty line is set lower,” the trio said in a statement.
They added that broad principles that should govern the response of the ANC government to the economic challenges should include avoiding the risk of unfairly placing the burden of the downturn on the poor and vulnerable.
On the challenges facing the civil servants in the country, the bodies expressed their concerns at the impact of economic challenges on workers, and especially civil servants, who are responsible for service delivery, saying most of their members, who are civil servants across all government departments, some in municipalities are drowning in debt, adding that it was evident by garnishee orders, being deducted from their salaries each month.
“Civil servants that are in debt are unproductive and are always absent at work, and this affects service delivery. It is unfortunate that rising fuel and food prices do not equal increases in salaries of workers. We are calling upon the ANC as a governing party to have a clear programme of action on how to deal with these challenges,” the statement read.
Daily News