SOUTH AFRICAN unions said on Sunday that they would take strike action over planned budget cuts by the country’s National Treasury.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) said that the budget cuts, set to be announced in the country’s medium-term budget policy statement later this week would hit workers and the poor the hardest.

Minister of Public Finance Enoch Godongwana has called for cuts of up to 15 per cent of department spending to help tackle the country’s projected fiscal deficit for 2023 of 4 per cent.

He has also called for a freeze of the hiring of new employees, freezing the advertisement of the procurement of all infrastructure projects, reducing non-essential travel unless funded by non-government resources, plus a spending freeze on catering, workshops and conferences.

South African media is reporting that the heads of Cosatu and Saftu have called on their members to stand up against the cuts which they say have been caused by an incompetent government that had made the wrong policy choices.

A statement from Cosatu said that the federation “is deeply dismayed by the National Treasury’s shocking proposals to impose ill-considered cuts across government as it prepares to table the medium-term budget policy statement.”

Cosatu president Zingiswa Losi also slammed the budget cuts saying that they would do nothing to help resolve the economic crisis facing the country.

Ms Losi said that Cosatu was against the “reckless attempts to impose misguided austerity budget cuts” across the government.

Saftu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said: “The finances of the government would not be in a precarious position if it had invested in infrastructure.

“The problem is that the government itself is on an investment strike, and it’s allowed the private sector to be on an investment strike.” 

He said: “We’re now sitting at around an investment of only 14 per cent of GDP. The economy can’t grow this way.” 

Posting on the X social media site Mr Vavi said that it was time to “tax the rich” and to increase the corporate taxes.”

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa also appears to have concerns over the proposals.

In response to the draft document, he said that spending cuts were “not necessarily the answer to the country’s financial problems.”

The budget crisis comes as the ruling African National Congress gears up for next year’s national and provincial elections which will be the seventh poll held since the end of apartheid in 1994.