E-tolls war far from over

All the 18 Cosatu affiliates attended the march, including the South African National Civic Organisation (Sanco), which also called for the scrapping of e-tolls. Gauteng Sanco chairperson, Chris Malematja was applauded when he said, “We came here to register our voices that we don’t want e-tolls in Gauteng and we don’t want labour brokers in any other part of the country.”

A heavy police presence was visible as marchers stopped by the offices of the Chamber of Mines, Telkom, the Department of Labour, First National Bank and the Gauteng premier’s office to hand over memorandums. At Telkom, the marchers handed over memorandums to officials representing Telkom, Eskom and Prasa. Among the demands were that the high unemployment rate and retrenchments be addressed, and that a reliable, accessible and affordable public transport system be provided.

Addressing the marchers, Cosatu president Sdumo Dlamini told workers to keep on fighting for decent jobs and asked Telkom to put a moratorium on their retrenchment plans.

He urged Eskom to get their act together by keeping the lights on and to make electricity affordable. Dlamini added that the electricity crisis was costing workers jobs and that Cosatu was opposed to the proposed privatisation of the entity.

“Today we want to tell the government and these employers that we need radical socio-economic transformation,” he said.

“We cannot continue this slow movement of transformation. We say to government, scrap the e-tolls, scrap that thing, don’t privatise our roads.”

Also addressing the march was South African Communist Party secretary general, Blade Nzimande. He called on government to renationalise Sasol and steel company ArcelorMittal.

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