South Africa – Cape Town – 6 October 2019 – The ANC in the Dullah Omar kicked off O.R. Tambo Month with a memorial lecture on the life and times of O.R. Tambo presented by ANC National Chairperson Gwede Mantashe. The lecture took place at Kalkfontein Primary School.
Date: 06 October 2019
Time: 15h00
Venue: Kalkfontein Primary School
Pictures Courtney Africa/African News Agency (ANA)
Yikes! COSATU delegates boo Mantashe off stage at congress
COSATU-affilliated members say ANC Chairperson Gwede Mantashe represents a party that does not care about workers
South Africa – Cape Town – 6 October 2019 – The ANC in the Dullah Omar kicked off O.R. Tambo Month with a memorial lecture on the life and times of O.R. Tambo presented by ANC National Chairperson Gwede Mantashe. The lecture took place at Kalkfontein Primary School.
Date: 06 October 2019
Time: 15h00
Venue: Kalkfontein Primary School
Pictures Courtney Africa/African News Agency (ANA)
The African National Congress (ANC) National Chairperson Gwede Mantashe didn’t get the warm welcome he was probably hoping for when he took to the stage to address 2000 members of unions affiliated with the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU).
The labour federation was holding its national congress in Midrand, Johannesburg on Monday, 26 September 2022, and Mantashe was expected to deliver a message of support, on behalf of the ruling party, which is an important alliance partner.
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‘HAMBA GWEDE,’ CHANT COSATU MEMBERS
Gwede Mantashe hadn’t even gotten onto the podium yet to give his address at the COSATU congress when angry members started heckling him and chanting non-stop.
They sang “Asinamali” (‘We don’t have money’) as well as “Hamba Gwede” (‘Leave, Gwede’), clearly in opposition of Mantashe addressing them. They say he represents a party that does not care about workers.
“Gwede (is a) representative (of) the ruling party which has refused to pay public service workers what is due to them in the last three years, and they want to hear when is the ruling party going to deploy its deployees to consider their plight on the ground because they’re suffocating,” one member who booed Mantashe is quoted as having told SABC News.
Mantashe isn’t the only ANC top official to receive a cold welcome from COSATU. ANC President Cyril Ramaphosa was forced to leave COSATU’s Worker’s Day rally in the North West on Sunday, 1 May 2022, after angry workers stormed the stage at the Royal Bafokeng Stage.
Speaking to journalists after the incident with Ramaphosa, COSATU President Zingisa Losi said they had previously warned the ANC in the build up to the 2021 local government elections that workers were getting tired of the governing party’s empty promises.
She said while she is leading COSATU, she isn’t under its employ and is in fact also a worker else and fully understands their complaints.
“I understand exactly what workers are going through. As the president of Cosatu, I’m not employed by the federation. I have my own workplace where I understand the day-to-day challenges workers are faced with,” Losi said.
