2005-01-06,+COSATU+to+Kgalema+Motlanthe,+ANC+SG

The Secretary General African National Congress JOHANNESBURG

Dear Comrade Kgalema Motlanthe

Re: Seeking of Solution to the crisis of the Correctional Service Ministry

COSATU wishes to extend its revolutionary greetings in this new year (2005) to you Comrade Kgalema as the Secretary General of the ANC in particular, and to your office in general. We are looking forward to our collective celebration of the 93rd birthday of the ANC on this coming Saturday (08 January 2005), and the continuously working together as revolutionary partners in the Alliance.

Reverting back to our above stated heading, we wish to inform your office of the formal complaint corresponded by POPCRU (one of our affiliates) to COSATU, of a counter-revolutionary behaviour of the Minister of Correctional Service in dealing with them(POPCRU) and their members. Having listened to POPCRU’s battle cry, if what they are telling us is true, we are convinced that the behaviour of the Minister of Correctional Service is not comradely, neither does it assist the movement in advancing the National Democratic Revolution from where it is. If that is the case, we think such an error needs a speedy political intervention from the movement and all other parties concerned in this dispute.

It is for those reasons that we are bringing this matter to your attention, in your capacity as the Secretary General of the ‘ruling party’ to whom, to whom now and again the deployees of the ‘ruling party’ have to account for their political conduct and public behaviour. We do not intend to canvass this issue in this brief, as we would like to avoid the usual and unacceptable leaking of our confidential relations with your office to the public domain. This unacceptable behaviour usually leads to the misconstruction of our intentions and an unnecessary public mud-slinging. We would not want that to happen over this issue, nor any other issue which could be resolved maturely within the structures of the movement.

Though we have been informed by POPCRU that you are familiar with some of these issues, we think it would be helpful for your record purposes to cite, but few of these issues which are common knowledge and already publicly known :
 * 1) POPCRU asserts that the Minister of Correctional Services consciously transgresses against their organisational rights. He is said to be going around prison officials’ training academies and colleges vilifying POPCRU and denouncing the joining of the union by the new recruits.
 * 2) He is said to be victimising the members of POPCRU, and since he resumed office last year(2004) had dismissed summarily, without any proper legal hearing nor justification about three hundred and forty (340) POPCRU members, and he is said to boisterously expressing that the number of these dismissals is still going to increase.
 * 3) He is said to be ignoring the communication corresponded to him to the effect that POPCRU members are resigning in large numbers from the correctional service institution due to the deteriorating conditions of service, including the subjection of prison officials to working with overcrowded inmates population, at the risk of compromising the safety of both the inmates, the prison officials themselves and the community at large. This is what usually leads to prisoners escapes.
 * 4) He is said to be disregarding all agreements that have been struck between the Ministry of Correctional Service and POPCRU, both prior to his resumption of Ministerial duties, and during his own time in the office.

These are, but the few, issues out of many that have been raised by POPCRU to us. All these issues are said to have been brought to the attention of the Minister concerned, and he disregards them. If such is true, the conduct of the Minister amounts to union bashing. Such is a behaviour which is not acceptable, especially from a ‘comrade’ of the ruling party. We further should mention that POPCRU intends to call all its members to battle in a quest to redress its grievances. Given the amount of work and challenges facing our movement this year(2005) such is an action that should be avoided. Such an energy should be used somewhere else in building the structures of the movement.

Those are, therefore, issues we intend to discuss with your office in order to reach an amicable solution, and provide a viable political directive to our structures where necessary. We therefore call for a speedy meeting between your office and us, so that we can map the way forward, and give apolitical directive in regard to this matter, as soon as possible. Indeed, it is in that meeting that we shall disclose all other details pertaining to this matter.

Yours in the struggle for socialism

Zwelinzima Vavi COSATU General Secretary