Johannesburg - The police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru) has warned against the consequences of Budget, saying it is convinced that the government is intentionally weakening the criminal justice cluster due to cuts.
Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana delivered his maiden Budget speech on Wednesday.
“As a union organising within the criminal justice cluster, we view his Budget as nothing but a continued trend in the strict economic policy measures which have been implemented by his predecessor.
“(It has) the aim of primarily reducing government spending in the public service by adhering to structural adjustment policies in the form of reforms as dictated to by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank,” said Popcru spokesperson Richard Mamabolo.
Mamabolo said it was common cause that the provision of loans always went with conditionalities, with governments typically agreeing to comprehensive structural adjustment measures which have failed the world over.
He said under the circumstances, this had and would continue to lead to excessive indebtedness, with a further need to attempt to restore the country’s fiscal capacity through new loans and further adjustment measures, further entrapping the country in debt.
Mamabolo said these have been demonstrated by the preconditioned structural adjustments for debt relief.
After having unanimously decided to cut the SAPS budget by R26 billion over a three-year period and only adding R8.7bn, reflected an initial shortfall of R17.3bn thus far, he added. This, as SAPS has committed to halving violent crimes within a decade.
“We are convinced that the government is intentionally weakening the criminal justice cluster. This latest stance sadly spells doom for the many public service employees in the criminal justice cluster and beyond.
“(They) continue to dedicate their services to the South African population, while not having received salary increments for the past two years. (Police) continue working while understaffed, are killed daily without government interventions. They are continuously demoralised over their deteriorating working conditions,” Mamabolo said.
He said they were still awaiting a Constitutional Court judgment on the outstanding Public Service Co-ordinating Bargaining Council (PSCBC) Resolution 1 of 2018, with specific reference to clause 3.3 which was the last leg of this resolution, which was presented at the apex court on 20 August last year.
“We had expected that the minister's Budget would indicate an intention to resolve this long-standing debacle. Instead, he opted to refer to negotiations, as opposed to figures, without any indication of finances set aside for this purpose, and therefore clearly undermining any future negotiation prospects as it relates to salary increments,” said Mamabolo.
He further said: “An announcement has recently been made that managers within the public service would be getting salary increases and cash incentives; all this, while workers remain in the dark about their deserved increases.”
Mamambolo said Popcru was of the view that the unfolding processes had been fruitless, while openly demonstrating the government’s overlooking of constitutionally recognised processes.
“This is a clear indication that workers are on their own. It is for this reason that other forms of action need to be considered in taking workers’ interests forward,” Mamabolo said.
ntombi.nkosi@inl.co.za
Political Bureau