The streets of the Johannesburg CBD are preoccupied with protests lately and the recent one involves CWP workers. A large number of Community Work Programme workers gathered outside the ANC’s headquarters, on Pixley Seme Street, on Monday demanding better wages.
Last month the workers had submitted a memorandum of grievances to the ANC, which was received by the party’s spokesperson Dakota Legoete. Since then the ruling party has been mum on meeting the CWP’s demands. The workers are pleading for their monthly R780 salary to increase to R1000.
One of the workers present at the protest, Mavis Sukwini, expressed her grievances to Gauteng News, “We work 8 days a month and receive a salary of R780. What can we honestly do with such a small amount of money? Our coordinators went to the head offices in Pretoria to negotiate but nothing has materialized.”
Her plight was reiterated by one of the speakers, Velaphi Ndaba from the City of Ekurhuleni, who had the crowd riled up with his charismatic utterances. “We delivered a memorandum to Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) but there was no response because of the arrogance of the officials and the department heading the CWP”, he said.
Ndaba declared that the CWP workers would start vandalizing COGTA structures if the ANC continued to remain silent. “The main purpose of this protest is to get answers”, he concluded.
