The National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union [NEHAWU] is preparing a provincial march to the office of the Premier in the province of Eastern Cape to deliver a memorandum of demands in relation to the crisis currently engulfing all departments across the provincial government especially in the Department of Health on Wednesday, the 24th October 2018 in Bhisho.

The aim of the march is to sharply highlight amongst others the collapse of the public healthcare system and the deteriorating state of public schools that have dangerous pit toilets that are a health hazard to both teachers and leaners to mention a few.

As a transformative union whose interests go beyond the bread and butter issues affecting our members, we wish to register in the strongest terms possible, our disappointment and dissatisfaction with the lack of coherence in the implementation of provincial strategy on service delivery by the Provincial Administration. NEHAWU as a union that is organizing in the public sector has observed with deep concern the systematic erosion of the culture of monitoring and evaluation by the Office of the Premier. We correctly believe that this office has an obligation to guide all departments and entities towards a seamless realization of the provincial government’s vision and strategic objectives.

The national union is vehemently opposed to the unilateral review of organizational structures across departments which disregarded the meaningful consultation with representative unions such as NEHAWU. We therefore demand an immediate reversals of moratorium on all the implementation of service delivery models until there is meaningful consultation within relevant bargaining structures in this regard.

NEHAWU is opposed to the unilateral creation and the existence of unlawful duplicate structure called the [PCMT] that has caused many blockages and promoted unnecessary delays on financial and administrative processes such as payments and appointments of staff on vacant funded posts. Our view is that the creation of this illegitimate structure has put an unnecessary pressure to service delivery and to the efficient functioning of government.

The issue of the Human Resources Operational Processes Team [HROPT] has been dragging for years and the provincial government has not made fundamental strides in addressing it. NEHAWU is revolted by the lack of political will in the office of the Premier, the office of the Director General, the offices of MECs for the Departments of Health and Education to finalize and conclude on the HROPT payments. Our members and workers have run out of patience and are demanding the immediate payment of the HROPT without fail. As NEHAWU, we also demand the immediate payment of outstanding monies owed to the deserving workers such as gratuity, service benefits and many allowances that are commonly known as the HR accruals.

The departments of the provincial government continuously fail to honour and implement awards and Court decisions. It has become a norm in these department to subject all CCMA Awards in favour of their employees to review, unnecessarily utilizing millions of taxpayers’ monies. NEHAWU is fervently opposed to any wasteful spending of taxpayers’ money especially in an impoverished, rural and under resourced province like Eastern Cape.

The province has a lot of dilapidated government buildings that are not habitable to house workers and provide services to the general public. Some of the buildings have failed to meet the health and safety standards as reported by the Department of Labour. In this regard, NEHAWU is giving the Eastern Cape government a warning that if the necessary renovations and/or new offices are not found within 21 days from the receipt of this memorandum to protect and safeguard health and safety of workers in those identified buildings, NEHAWU will immediately direct its members and workers to take steps in order to protect their own lives by refusing to work under such unpalatable conditions.

The department of Public Works in the province is currently engaged in costly legal battles with various landlords over contracts that should not have been entered into in the first place. For instance, the lawyers for ESDA Properties are claiming R4, 3 million in rent for the CASTELLANO Building in West-bank, East London.  Transport’s Fleet Management Services division entered into two five year lease agreements worth R16, 7 million and R11, 7million respectively, for a building that they occupied only for five days.

There are presently 122 Emergency Medical Services vehicles that are standing idle and gathering dust at the Woodbrook Depot in East London. This is happening when millions of our people in the rural areas are in dire need of emergency medical transportation.  In our view, this constitute wasteful and fruitless expenditure that violates the core of the Public Finance Management Act [PFMA] principles.

The forthcoming provincial march, the union will sharply raise the following demands:

·       Immediate payment of Human Resources Operational Processes Team [HROPT].

·       Scrapping off the illegitimate Provincial Coordinating Management Team [PCMT] based in the Office of the Premier immediately.

·       Full implementation of the recommendations in the investigation on Sex for Jobs scandal as reported by the union shop stewards to the legislature.

·       Decentralize PERSAL system as it has rendered workers performing the function of departmental controllers as redundant personnel in all departments.

·       Safe buildings especially in health and social development offices.

·       End corruption, fraud and nepotism now.

·       Immediate suspension of all departmental organograms processes.

·       Payment of all accruals including pension benefits, overtime gratuity payments.

·       Absorb all Community Healthcare Workers [CHW] and contract workers now.

·       Fill all funded vacant posts immediately.

·       Stop union bashing by government departments now.

·       Pay danger allowance to all deserving workers.

·       Grade progression for all health professionals

·       Immediate translation of nurses who acquired post-graduate qualification with back pay and the appointment of nurses who are roaming around the streets while there is shortage of professional nurses in hospital and clinics.

·       Consult unions on the appointments of senior managers and all senior managers must be vetted

·       Stop the unnecessary and overuse of private attorneys; stop using senior councils to conduct labour related cases in internal disputes, and thus creating an opportunity for easy money making scheme by the legal firms who accumulate financial gain through state attorney office facilitating prolonged cases for profit making.

·       Investigate corrupt practices such as nepotism and favouritism on appointments as reported and exposed by shop stewards across many departments.

·       Full investigation on cases of fraud and corruption.

·       Hold all managers accountable so as to execute their fiduciary duties efficiently and sufficiently to improve the financial situation and the service delivery to the clientele as were identified by the report of the office of the Auditor General.

·       Insource all outsourced services in the Eastern Cape Provincial Administration

 
In the light of the above serious maladministrative inefficiencies and the clear abdication of fiduciary administrative responsibilities, the current Director General must be immediately relieved of her duties and be replaced as a matter of urgency.
 
At the centre of this march, NEHAWU will demand a positive response from the Premier on the demands within seven days, failing which NEHAWU shall have no option but to embark on a rolling mass action until the current situation is drastically transformed and changed for better. We note the confirmation from the Premier to deploy the MEC of Sport, Arts and Culture to receive our memorandum on his behalf. On record, the union wishes to inform the Premier that it will be in his best interest to receive the memorandum by himself as we are not prepared to hand over the memorandum to anyone but himself.
 

Details of the march

Date: Wednesday October 24, 2018

Assembly time: 9am

Assembly point: BISHO STADIUM – BISHO, Eastern Cape

The memorandum will be received by the Premier at the Premier’s Office, State House BISHO at 12h30

Issued by NEHAWU Secretariat

Zola Saphetha (General Secretary) at 082 558 5968; December Mavuso (Deputy General Secretary) at 082 558 5969; Khaya Xaba (NEHAWU Media Liaison  Officer) at 082 455 2500 or email: khaya@nehawu.org.za Visit NEHAWU website: www.nehawu.org.za