This news aggregator site highlights South African labour news from a wide range of internet and print sources. Each posting has a synopsis of the source article, together with a link or reference to the original. Postings cover the range of labour related matters from industrial relations to generalist human resources.
Independent Media reports that ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba has condemned government’s decision to import Cuban engineers to fix the country’s dilapidated infrastructure while allegedly ignoring locally trained and unemployed engineers.
Mashaba made these remarks after the Minister of Human Settlement, Water and Sanitation, Lindiwe Sisulu, confirmed that 24 Cuban engineers were in the country to assist provincial and local governments with fixing their infrastructure. In his reaction, Mashaba said that in doing so, the government had added insult to the injury of the R400 million spent on importing Cuban doctors to combat the Covid-19 pandemic in SA. Claiming that the government had failed to maintain, repair and renew the infrastructure in SA and had created an infrastructure crisis, Mashaba noted that whereas SA had some of the best engineers in the world. But, as a result of economic mismanagement and the impact of the lockdown, many were sitting at home unemployed. He said: “To import Cuban engineers who qualified from lower standard universities than our own world-class engineers is criminal. How do Cuban engineers or doctors fit into the sliding scale of affirmative action? “Like the import of Cuban doctors, the import of Cuban engineers is 100% about the ANC scratching the back of a country that it has historical links with.” Mashaba said his party would be establishing an online site where unemployed, qualified SA engineers could register their details. “We will collect this list over a period of the next month, after which we will present it to the government alongside the demand that these South African engineers are employed first before any are imported from Cuba or any other country for that matter.” Mashaba indicated.
- Read the original of the above report by Baldwin Ndaba at Independent Media
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page