South Africa: 100 NUPSAW members march in Pretoria to reinstate EPWP workers

"We demand that you employ all EPWP workers with more than 2 years of service permanently".

Demanding improved wages in Pretoria about 100 members of the National Union of Public Service and Allied Workers (NUPSAW) marched in the city, according to a report by Ground Up.

The march reportedly started from Marabastad to Gauteng Department of Infrastructure and Development earlier on Wednesday.

The protesters demanded the reinstatement of all Expanded Public Works Programme workers who lost their jobs in March. They also asked the department to roll an additional payment for the last eight months and formulating a panel for permanent employment of these EPWP workers.

It read, "we demand the immediate implementation of interim standardization of R7000.00 of remuneration with effect from 1st April 2019, and stop draconian practice of transferring funds of ECD centres on quarterly basis, while you pay yourselves fat salaries every month, but forcing workers to live below the lower-bound poverty line and further to live below the food poverty line just for mere existence."

"We demand that you employ all EPWP workers with more than 2 years of service permanently", it added.

The memorandum circulated by NUPSAW stated that the department had promised to train 5,000 EPWP workers but they didn't train all of them. Many EPWP workers worked in schools, hospitals, and security administrations. It stated, “EPWP had unacceptably high operating costs and inexplicably opaque overheads. Slavery employment is created but the primary beneficiaries remain well connected, not the poor workers".

The National Organiser of NUPSAW, Solly Malema said that several EPWP workers received an SMS in March stating their contracts expired on 31 March wouldn't be renewed, a contradiction to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s agenda of protecting jobs during the lockdown.

Ouma Ngobeni-Sipoya, the Deputy Director of EPWP, received the memorandum and promised to respond earliest in a duration of seven days.

EPWP is a platform that provides job opportunities by providing community and public services for economically unprivileged and unemployed people. The program also provides vocational training to these people, as per reports.