IMATU COMMENTS ON SONA

The Independent Municipal and Allied Trade Union (IMATU) is cautiously optimistic following the delivery of last night’s State of the Nation Address (SONA).

“We are particularly pleased with the President’s commitment to improve the functioning of local government, to intensify the fight against corruption and ensure that qualified and experienced personnel are deployed in municipalities,” stated IMATU General Secretary, Johan Koen.

IMATU welcomes the President’s commitment to realising the collaborative vision of the National Development Plan (NDP), the New Growth Path (NGP) and the Industrial Policy Action Plan (IPAP). IMATU fully endorses the NDP however, strongly believes that in order to achieve growth, development and prosperity in South Africa, the NDP will need to provide an accurate and effective roadmap to deal with the serious challenges of poverty, inequality and unemployment.

“While it is encouraging that positive strides have been made to increase service delivery and address inequality, IMATU remains concerned by the increasingly violent nature of service delivery protests and the destroying of public infrastructure. We believe that decisive governance and the filling of vacancies in the Local Government sector will lead to a well-functioning service delivery model,” commented Koen.

“IMATU strongly supports the President’s statement that South Africa is a much better place to live in now than it was before 1994. There is, however, much that needs to be done in order to effectively address corruption, violent service delivery protests and unemployment,” concluded Koen.