{"id":258828,"date":"2023-05-02T12:03:32","date_gmt":"2023-05-02T10:03:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/our-kids-survive-on-pap-and-tea-says-protesting-cogta-worker\/"},"modified":"2023-05-02T12:03:32","modified_gmt":"2023-05-02T10:03:32","slug":"our-kids-survive-on-pap-and-tea-says-protesting-cogta-worker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/our-kids-survive-on-pap-and-tea-says-protesting-cogta-worker\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cOur kids survive on pap and tea,\u201d says protesting COGTA worker"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"article_body\">\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Chris%20Gilili\/cwp_march_to_luthuli_house.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/our-kids-survive-on-pap-and-tea-says-protesting-cogta-worker.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Hundreds of Community Work Programme (CWP) workers marched to ANC headquarters in Johannesburg demanding higher wages, among other things. Photos: Chris Gilili<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Hundreds of Community Work Programme (CWP) workers marched to the ANC headquarters in Johannesburg on Monday.<\/li>\n<li>They are demanding higher wages, more working days and permanent employment.<\/li>\n<li>Last week CWP workers employed by the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA), spent two days outside the head office in Pretoria, demanding to be paid their R880 monthly stipend for April.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Hundreds of Community Work Programme (CWP) workers marched to ANC headquarters in Johannesburg on Monday to hand over a memorandum of demands.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt class=\"leave\" height=\"1\" id=\"gu_counter\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/our-kids-survive-on-pap-and-tea-says-protesting-cogta-worker.gif\" width=\"1\"><\/p>\n<p>Last week workers <a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/hundreds-of-workers-protest-outside-cogta-office-in-pretoria-for-unpaid-wages\/\">picketed for days<\/a> outside the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs\u2019 (COGTA) head office in Pretoria. They were demanding the payment of their R880 monthly stipend for April, among other issues. COGTA blamed the payment delay on challenges moving the programme from the implementing agent, whose contract ended in March.<\/p>\n<p>On Monday the workers, led by the Maanda Ashu Workers Union of South Africa (MAWUSA), braved the cold weather to march from Mary Fitzgerald Square in Newtown chanting liberation slogans.<\/p>\n<p>They want the ruling ANC to direct the Minister of Labour to increase workers\u2019 stipends. They also want full-time employment for CWP workers and up to 20 days of work per month, among other things.<\/p>\n<p>Nomsa Magangane from Lawley told GroundUp that she is a single mother with five children, and that the R880 stipend is only enough to cover a week\u2019s worth of expenses in her home.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis money only buys basic food, like maize meal, cooking oil, flour and then it\u2019s finished. I also have to buy electricity. We are pleading for more,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Chris%20Gilili\/nomsa_magangane_from_lawley_in_johannesburg_WLEVoQ2.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt class=\"warn_big\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/our-kids-survive-on-pap-and-tea-says-protesting-cogta-worker-1.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Nomsa Magangane from Lawley says the R880 stipend is only enough to cover a week\u2019s worth of expenses in her home.<\/p>\n<p>Palesa Motloiwa from Kagiso said, \u201cI have been working as a CWP worker since 2010. This R880 is very little, honestly. I cover funeral policies and food on this little money. My policies lapse every month because I cannot afford them. We feel enslaved. All we ask is for the government to think for us as well.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Thabisile Mzobe from Tembisa said, \u201cWe close potholes in Ekurhuleni so that people\u2019s cars can move, but there are municipal workers who should do that. We also unblock drains. I have been working since 2012. It is serious hard labour. At least if they can extend our days or the hours we work, so that we earn better.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cR880 cannot hold a family. Our kids survive on pap and tea,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>MAWUSA secretary general Velaphi Ndaba said: \u201cThe ANC is failing its people.\u201d The people on the CWP were \u201cliving in squalor, said Ndaba. \u201c<span>As a union, we cannot sit and allow that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Ndaba said, \u201cIf the government won\u2019t listen to us, we will meet them in the elections.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mandla Qwabe, an ANC leader, accepted the memo and promised to give it to the office of the secretary general. \u201cThe union will receive our response within two weeks. We\u2019re aware that the government has committed itself to better people\u2019s lives. If we\u2019re failing to do that, you have a right to come to us,\u201d said Qwabe.<\/p>\n<p>He said they will arrange a meeting with MAWUSA leadership and ANC secretary general Fikile Mbalula soon.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"article_copyright\">\n<p>\u00a9 2023 GroundUp. This article is licensed under a <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nd\/4.0\/\" rel=\"license\">Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and GroundUp, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.<\/p>\n<p>We put an invisible pixel in the article so that we can count traffic to republishers. All analytics tools are solely on our servers. We do not give our logs to any third party. Logs are deleted after two weeks. We do not use any IP address identifying information except to count regional traffic. We are solely interested in counting hits, <b>not tracking<\/b> users. If you republish, please do not delete the invisible pixel.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/our-kids-survive-on-pap-and-tea-says-protesting-cogta-worker.jpg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/\">Source: GroundUp<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hundreds of Community Work Programme (CWP) workers marched to ANC headquarters in Johannesburg demanding higher wages, among other things. Photos: Chris Gilili Hundreds of Community Work Programme (CWP) workers marched to the ANC headquarters in Johannesburg on Monday. They are demanding higher wages, more working days and permanent employment. Last week CWP workers employed by [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":258829,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9928,3247],"tags":[28001],"class_list":{"0":"post-258828","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-groundup","8":"category-news","9":"tag-groundup","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/our-kids-survive-on-pap-and-tea-says-protesting-cogta-worker.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258828\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}