Numsa to march during budget speech

Johannesburg - A demonstration will be held outside Parliament on Wednesday to demand decent jobs for black youth, the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) in the Western Cape said.

The demonstration would coincide with Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan's Budget speech to parliament, Numsa said in a statement on Tuesday.

Numsa regional secretary Vuyo Lufele said a representative of the ANC was expected to accept a memorandum of demands.

The union did not have high expectations of Gordhan's budget speech.

False promises

"We expect, as usual, our people to be fooled and lured to sleep with false promises of millions of jobs from construction and other capitalist projects.

"More painfully, we expect [Gordhan], like his master President Jacob Zuma, to pontificate that 'South Africa is better than it was before 1994'."

Lufele said the demonstration was part of the union's dissatisfaction with the Employment Tax Incentive Act, signed into law in December. It provides subsidies for businesses to employ young people.

"Through the scheme, government will simply be bribing the bosses, through the public purse, in the form of tax rebates, to 'create' already existing jobs, whilst no real and decent new jobs are being created to absorb the reserve army of the unemployed youth," Lufele said.