Numsa: Zuma has failed Mantashe
2010-02-18 20:08
Johannesburg - President Jacob Zuma should have defended ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe against calls for his removal by ANCYL leader Julius Malema, the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) said on Thursday.
"Why did the president keep quiet when his party's secretary-general was being attacked?" asked Numsa general secretary Irvin Jim.
He said Zuma should have reprimanded Malema for his "misbehaviour".
Malema wanted Mantashe replaced by deputy Police Minister Fikile Mbalula, Jim said.
"The ANC is not run by tsotsis who would sit in shebeens and decided to put their friends as leaders.
"Mantashe is being eaten alive and Malema should have been reprimanded," said Jim.
He said Mantashe was being targeted because he was a communist.
"Numsa rejects the premature call to unseat Mantashe now or (at the ANC's elective conference) in 2012," he said, adding that Malema had taken an anti-Congress of SA Trade Unions and anti-SA Communist Party posture.
"This unprovoked stance against the working class is deliberately generated by individuals who disapprove of the good working relations within the tripartite alliance that emerged in Polokwane," he said referring to the 2007 ANC conference.
"They believe communists are not entitled to being in the ANC," said Jim.
Programme
Malema would have to work very hard to remove Mantashe because Numsa would oppose him and anyone else who made that call, Jim said.
"We will defend the ANC against these unscrupulous individuals who are only interested in their wealth and tenders."
Jim criticised Zuma's State of the Nation address, saying Numsa's national executive committee had discussed it and found it "uninspiring" and "empty.
"Zuma failed to respond to the glaring serious and worsening socio-economic conditions confronting the working class.
"It has also failed to give clear vision and command to state institutions, and to galvanise the people behind the programme of action as laid out in Polokwane," said Jim.
Zuma's address lacked commitment to promote decent work through procurement practices that could champion "localisation" and he failed to act against labour broking, said Jim.
He said Numsa would not keep quiet when Polokwane resolutions were not being implemented just because it had supported Zuma for president.
Disappointed
On Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan's Budget speech, Jim said it had been anti-poor and anti-working class.
"The budget became a platform to take forward the neo-liberal macro-economic framework (Gear).
"What we have resisted in the past 15 years is now worse because Gear [growth, employment and redistribution] has been put on a faster gear now," he said.
He said Numsa was disappointed that Gordhan maintained the same policies that had destroyed the country's opportunity to develop.
"This is not surprising because the Treasury staff belong to the old order that resisted change," said Jim, adding that the union would persuade Cosatu to call for inflation targeting to be dropped.
- SAPA