Bid to stop SA from importing Cuban engineers

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By Zelda Venter Time of article published20m ago

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Pretoria – Trade union Solidarity will turn to the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria on June 1 in a bid to obtain an interdict against the plans of Minister of Human Settlements, Water and Sanitation Lindiwe Sisulu to import and deploy Cuban engineers.

However, Sisulu’s department said it would oppose the urgent application.

Solidarity said in court papers that many qualified and registered South African engineers were being discriminated against directly and indirectly because of the government’s decision to source Cuban nationals to perform tasks at a cost of R64 million.

This, they said, could have been paid to unemployed local engineers.

According to the organisation, in 2018 already the South African engineering sector stood at about 83% utilisation. The current economic downturn as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic has only aggravated this figure, Dirk Hermann said in an affidavit.

He said that there was more than sufficient local capacity to meet the needs of the government.

“We have met with the department.

“They requested the opportunity to submit an alternative proposal, for which we set a deadline, and we have also extended this deadline twice.

“To date, however, no alternative proposal has been received.

“The matter is urgent and Solidarity cannot allow it to drag on any longer.

“Our legal team went ahead with urgent legal steps to stop the minister’s plans,” said Hermann.

In its application, “Solidarity asks for an interdict that will prevent any work being done on South Africa’s water infrastructure by Cuban engineers, and the application also asks that no payments related to this agreement be made.

“Importing engineers is outrageous when the knowledge, competence and accreditation of willing engineers are available on home soil.

“These Cuban engineers are not accredited in South Africa.

“Our tax money can much rather be used to employ our own engineers and workers.”

Hermann said that the Cuban engineers had been welcomed in South Africa without the government following appropriate procurement processes to ensure that the funds “ring-fenced” for the project were utilised by contracting and/or employing South African Engineers.

“The Cuban project is being rolled out and implemented in a manner where such implementation is procedurally unfair and even unlawful and irrational.”

“Our priority is to promote the interests of South African workers,” Hermann said.

Pretoria News

Credit IOL

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