Cosatu demands govt abolish tender system
The trade union federation's general-secretary Bheki Ntshalintshali says the system has been used to line the pockets of corrupt civil servants.
Cosatu is planning a national shutdown on Wednesday.
It says the strike is not only to give voice to anger around load shedding and the rising cost of living, but also for workers who were treated unfairly by their employers.
The federation has vowed to bring the country to a standstill when thousands of members take to the street on Wednesday.
Ntshalintshali says a system of tenders and contracts between the state and the private sector business cannot be allowed to continue.
"We cannot continue with a system of tender and proclamation of contracts between the state and the private sector businesses both black and white that has scorned an industry of corruption and fraud.
"This system has seen many senior leaders in government advancing their own personal or some nepotistic interests.
"If we have functioning judicial and legislative systems hundreds or even thousands of leaders in the public sector and in the private sector would be in jail for plundering the economy.
The union's President Zingiswa Losi says the strike is not a Cosatu sectoral strike but a section 77 strike.
"This is not a Cosatu sectoral strike, this is a section 77 on socio-economic issues which are not generally about workers only, but it's about the standard of living of people of South Africa.
“That is why we are calling on South Africans to join the strike beyond workers because the issues that we are raising are not just issues that are affecting workers but also the unemployed."
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