POLITICS

Treasury has declared war on workers - COSATU

Union federation says Taxation Laws Amendment Act dictates how citizens can spend their money

The implementation of the Taxation Laws Amendment Act is a declaration of war against the workers by Treasury

COSATU is deeply perturbed and enraged by the intransigence shown by the National Treasury ,with regard to the unilateral implementation of the anti-worker Taxation Laws Amendment Act of 2013 as amended.  The National Treasury intend to go ahead with the implementation of the Taxation Laws Amendment Act, of 2013 as amended, regardless of workers rejecting this piece of legislation. This bill is meant to coerce and force workers to save by force. There is no government or department that should be allowed to pass laws that are meant to dictate to citizens and workers, how and when they should spend their hard-earned money

They are doing this in the absence of a Comprehensive Social Security and Retirement reform discussion paper, which government has failed to deliver for more than ten years.

The task team set up by the Management Committee of NEDLAC to engage on this matter is still waiting for Comprehensive Social Security and Retirement Discussion Paper to be tabled in NEDLAC for engagement. But the National Treasury has abandoned these engagements to pursue its planned retirement reforms unilaterally.

Attempts by Parliament’s Standing Committee on Finance to intervene on this very sensitive issue for workers has failed, because Treasury is hell-bent on bulldozing everyone to get what it wants.

This is happening at a time when over 85 000 civil servants have resigned between July 2014 and June 2015 ,fearing that they would lose access to their hard earned retirement savings because of this legislation.

This is nothing but a direct attack on the workers and provident funds unions. This arrogant act of provocation by the Treasury and the entire government will get an appropriate and equal response from the workers. Workers will fight any attempts to impose compulsory preservation of our hard earned deferred wages.

There will be no compulsory preservation or any other imposed reforms for us and about us but without us, on our watch. We will spare no effort to stop this tyranny and ill placed overconfidence by the Treasury.

No government has a right to unilaterally decide for workers, as to how and when they should spend their retirement savings. These savings are part of worker’s hard-earned salaries and should be accessible to the workers, as and when they need them in particular in the absence of Comprehensive Social Security.

The Treasury is appropriating too much power for itself and our government should rein it in sooner rather than later. We find it regrettable that this provocation of workers happens just months before the 2016 local government elections. We want to warn the ANC that this will have severe consequences, because workers will not campaign or vote for the movement, if they feel that its government is on the offensive against them.

COSATU is also intensely irritated by the fact that, while the National Treasury is pushing for the implementation of this legislation at all costs, it is also directly and indirectly supporting the integration of many retirement funds into industry owned, managed funds that will be controlled by service providers. This is an attempt at dealing with union established funds.

These funds were established under very difficult conditions under the apartheid regime and we won’t allow them to be taken away and BE handed over to business. Retirement Funds are the only savings that most workers have and they are not for sale nor are they the private property of the National Treasury.

We call on all our members and workers in general to join COSATU in stopping National Treasury from destroying our only savings, the provident funds.

We demand that the Ministry of Finance should postpone the implementation of this law until Comprehensive Social Security and Retirement Reform Discussion Paper is tabled at NEDLAC for discussions and an agreement on it is reached by social partners.

We demand that the government led by the Department for Social Development should release the long outstanding inter-department task team discussion paper once and for all and table it at NEDLAC for engagements without any further delay. The Department for Social Development cannot keep quiet and be neutral and say nothing whilst this is their responsibility and competency.

No government department should be allowed to operate as a super ministry that can bulldozed others and undermine the entire government.

We are going to the upcoming COSATU’s 12th National Congress to discuss this and resolve on a battle plan on how we are going to take the fight straight to National Treasury and its supporters to defend our funds.

Issued by COSATU National Spokesperson Sizwe Pamla, 16 November 2015