Acting chairperson of the African National Congress (ANC) in the Western Cape, Khaya Magaxa, called for an end to corruption as he addressed protesters outside Parliament on Wednesday.
Dozens of National Health and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu) members marched to Parliament to hand over a memorandum to Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan who is due to deliver his budget speech later on Wednesday afternoon.
Brandishing posters that read “Away with Poverty Wage”, “Employ more Nurses Now” and “Down with Neoliberal Macroeconomic Policies”, protesters appeared defiant as they repeated Magaxa’s call “Down with Corruption”.
Magaxa, flanked by Congress of South African Trade Unions’s Tony Ehrenreich, told the crowd that only a government led by the ANC would be able to address their problems.
“We don’t have confidence in the bourgeosie, we don’t have confidence in capitalists. Capitalists will not improve the working force of this country. It is only our government, led by the ANC, which will be able provide proper and efficient services. Otherwise, if we allow the private sector, which is already corrupt and imposing corruption on the public sector, if we allow that to continue it will mean that the ANC will lose its responsibility.”
Nehawu is demanding, among others, a higher minimum wage‚ the total scrapping of e-tolls‚ and the full implementation of a national health insurance.
A heavy police presence stood guard in the blazing sun ahead of Gordhan’s 2017 budget speech.
– African News Agency (ANA)
