Parliament denies retrenchment claims made by the EFF and says it is a Voluntary Severance Package

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South African Parliament has denied and dismissed claims made by the opposition party Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) that the Parliament is retrenching some of their staff members.

“Parliament wishes to correct the patently erroneous and misleading claims made in the statement issued by the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) regarding the process of affording employees who are on the verge of retirement age an opportunity to opt for voluntary early retirement” said Parliament’s Spokesperson Moloto Mothapo through a statement.

The EFF released a statement on March 5th saying they are disgusted by the move made by the Parliament on letting go of some of the staff members to cut costs.

Parliament said this is a voluntary retirement package which cannot be forced on employees and it is not as the EFF claims.

“The EFF notes with disgust, the disclosure by the Acting Secretary of Parliament, Baby Tyawa, that Parliament is to retrench thousands of workers. At the meeting of the Joint Standing Committee on the Financial Management of Parliament on 5 March, Ms Tyawa revealed that Parliament is short of over R 500million, just to keep it’s current staff compliment and will therefore effect voluntary severance package, to force staff members out” said the EFF in the statement.

They also said that Parliament claims that their hand was forced by the severe budget cuts by the national treasury.

The EFF further said that should this continue it will have severe impact the Parliament’s performance on many services due to short staffing. They said that there are many crucial positions in Parliament that should be protected at all costs because of their nature, positions such as researchers, content advisors, committee secretaries, just to mention few.

“Parliament has made lot of senseless financial decisions in the past, which contributed to current financial mess. When they could not handle robust debates, they employed security guards in the form of the so called “white shirts”, who were previously with the police, and gave them ridiculous amounts of money as salaries”

The EFF added that they still don’t understand why is Parliament still housed in Cape Town while the seat of government is in Tshwane.

They also urged staff members to join hands and fight the alleged retirement and they will fight side by side with them.

Parliament said that an agreement was reached together with the staff members and their union representatives and they also have several members who are willing to take up the offer.