NEHAWU Media Statement, 13 February 2014 Response to the 2014 State of the Nation Address NEHAWU welcomes the overall thrust of the 2014 State of Nation Address, which was the last report of the fourth democratic administration under the stewardship of the African National Congress. This year's address was an account of the tremendous strides that our country has made over the past 20 years and indeed it proved once again that, we have a good story to tell. To the extent that it also points to the shortcomings and immense challenges, especially the triple challenges of unemployment, poverty and inequalities, that are still facing our country, we believe that it was an honest and balanced assessment. NEHAWU particularly welcomes the President's announcement that government commits to eliminate the bucket system and to build 12 new FET Colleges in Limpopo, Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape. Despite the positive tone of the SONA, we have some concerns about the statement's silence on the following issues: . A progress report on the work of the Presidential Remuneration Commission which was established to investigate the appropriateness of the remuneration and conditions of service provided by the State to all its employees as announced in the 2013 State of the Nation Address. We are concerned that there appears to be limited progress in this regard. As NEHAWU we are of the view that the looming round of collective bargaining in the public service must begin to reflect improvements in the remuneration and conditions of service in line with the intent of this review. . A commitment to release the White Paper on the National Health Insurance in 2014 as previously undertaken by the government. Whilst we note that the President has mentioned that the implementation of the NHI is poised to enter a new phase, we are concerned about the continuing silence on the release of the White Paper. NEHAWU demands that there should be policy certainty to guide the ongoing implementation of the NHI. . The commissioned study on tax policies which was announced in the 2013 State of the Nation Address, which amongst others was intended to review the current mining royalties' regime. We echo the ANC's 2013 January 8th Message that this exercise must empower the state "to capture an equitable share of mineral resource rents through the tax system and deploy them in the interests of long-term economic growth, development and transformation" We do acknowledge that this SONA was an account of what happened over the last five years and a summary of the last twenty years, but we believe that the above issues need to be clarified. While we understand that the programme of action for this financial year, will be presented by the new government after the elections, we will continue to sharply raise issues that are of importance to workers and will continue to vigilantly watch the implementation of the adopted policies and agreed programmes. Issued by NEHAWU Secretariat For further information, please contact: Fikile Majola, NEHAWU General Secretary, 082 455 1751, or Sizwe Pamla (NEHAWU Media Liaison Officer) at 011 833 2902 -082 558 5962 or email: [email protected] Visit NEHAWU website: www.nehawu.org.za -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
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