The EFF’s promise of increasing the salaries of domestic workers, security guards and petrol attendants as well as doubling social grants is pie in the sky and illogical.
This is the view of political analyst Mcebisi Ndletyana.
Ndletyana said that from the EFF’s manifesto launch in Soshanguve, Pretoria, at the weekend, two things were key – the promises of tax concessions and creating jobs in areas that needed them most.
“Tax concessions have worked elsewhere but promises of increasing salaries is pie in the sky,” he said.
“We do have a minimum wage in the country but this happened after long years because companies had to . . . determine how to make profits.
“You can’t force them because if you do, they will close down and people will lose their jobs,” Ndletyana said.
Under an EFF government, mineworkers would earn R12,500 a month, domestic workers R5,000 and petrol attendants R6,500, it promised.
Ndletyana said this was not a realistic way of doing things.
“We’re in debt and our debt is growing. This is increasing the populist view and this will never happen; it’s completely illogical,” Ndletyana said.
Meanwhile, Nelson Mandela University lecturer and political analyst Ongama Mtimka said the manifesto was great, but unaffordable.
In terms of reconfiguring the spheres of government by doing away with the provincial sphere to redirect resources directly to municipalities, Mtimka said it was a sound proposal.
“There are a lot of processes of providing services to communities which get trapped in inter-government processes.
“There are examples where provincial government has been bypassed in the human settlements provision space.
“In there, municipalities that have shown capability over time to implement projects have received direct allocations from national.
“This helps deliver more units of houses than it would when it depended on province,” Mtimka said.
Asked where the money would come from to pay for this extra income, EFF leader Julius Malema said in an SABC TV interview earlier this week that SA spent money on useless things such as a huge cabinet.
“If you reduce it, you’d save a lot of millions and redirect that money to the poor.
“We’re talking about creating factories, factories for our people, and once you grow the economy you are able to meet your social obligations.
“We need to increase collection of taxes. We must deal with the issue of inheritance tax because the rich inherit [businesses] and pay less tax.
“We must increase corporate tax. [We must] deal decisively with illicit financial flows and tax avoidance because there is too much money we’re losing,” Malema said.