Never forget Chisale - Nzimande
2005-05-03 09:39
Borrie le Grange
Johannesburg - Nelson Chisale, the farm worker who died a gruesome death in a lion camp outside Hoedspruit, Limpopo, last year, was thrown to the lions because he filed a complaint against his racist employer for unfair labour practices.
This is what Dr Blade Nzimande, secretary general of the South African Communist Party (SACP), told a Workers' Day rally in Tembisa on the East Rand on Monday.
"Nelson Chisale was thrown into the lion's den because he laid a complaint over unfair labour practices against his white, racist employer with the department of labour. This shows how ingrained racism still is in this society. South African workers should never forget Chisale," Nzimande said.
Mark Scott-Crossley, Chisale's former employer, and Simon Mathebula were found guilty in Phalaborwa last week of murdering Chisale.
A crowd of nearly 4 000 people loudly cheered President Thabo Mbeki in Tembisa earlier when he arrived at the Mehlareng stadium and walked around the crowd.
Nzimande said the piece-job phenomenon and outsourcing of labour have caused about a million job opportunities to be lost since 1994. He said the economy was heading in the wrong direction and thousands of job opportunities were being lost.
Nzimande asked the government to draw up a strategic industrial plan to create jobs. He urged the government to ensure that institutions such as Eskom and Telkom remain in government hands and that investments are once again made into these organisations.
He called on credit amnesty for the poor to remove their names from the black lists of credit bureaus and to give them a second chance at entering the mainstream economy in this way.
"Banks must realise that the poor should also have access to the financial sector. We have to fight to get banks to give home loans to the poor over loan periods less than 20 years."
Willie Madisha, president of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), said poverty "is the new apartheid system" that South Africans have to deal with. "We are very angry about the job opportunities that are being lost and government should break its silence and prevent further job losses."
Madisha said about 40% of South Africans are unemployed. He criticised the retrenchments, caused by economic conditions, in the beleaguered mining and textile industries.
- Beeld