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The Cosatu Secretariat meeting, which constitutes of the office bearers of Cosatu and Chairpersons and Secretaries of the Affiliates in the Eastern Cape Province, met on Tuesday 8th September 2009 to discuss a number of pertinent issues.
ANC PROVINCIAL Congress
As regards the ANC Provincial Congress that will be held in East London from 10-12 September 2009, the Secretariat reaffirmed its decision to support the election of following candidates:
Cdes Pumulo Masualle as the Provincial Chairperson, Gugile Nkwinti as the Deputy Chairperson, Oscar Mabuyana for the position of Provincial Secretary, Helen August as Deputy Secretary and Thandiswa Marawu as Treasurer. The decision to support these candidates was guided by Cosatu's quest to champion working class interests. This is especially in view of what workers see as the attempt by neo liberal elements to change the strategic orientation of our Movement as well as undermine the unity of the Alliance and progress of the National Democratic Revolution.
The Secretariat also noted that certain national leaders were fuelling division within the province in the run up to the provincial conference for self interested reasons especially the garnering of support for themselves at the 2012 National Conference
Local Government
In regards to Local government the meeting noted that there is continuing poor service delivery in many of our municipalities and yet critical decisions such as the re-demarcation of the boundaries of some municipalities and the declaration of Buffalo City Municipality as a Metro were taken without consulting relevant stakeholders such as Cosatu. Cosatu's view is that there are structural and systemic problems with the municipalities which are causing the poor service delivery and continued suffering and growing discontent among the people. Cosatu therefore resolved to establish a task team that will develop a position for the Federation which will be recommended to our PEC.


Meeting with the Premier
Finally the meeting decided that because nothing much has improved since Cosatu declared a dispute with the Provincial Government over poor service delivery, we are requesting a meeting with the Premier in order to address our concerns which relate to the PGDP, Job Summit and Districts Growth and Development Summit commitments as well as the Provincial Government's response to the current economic crisis. It was also resolved that Cosatu should engage the Premier on the participation of the Federation as a stakeholder in the jobs interview panels and the Tender and Audit Committees in order to allow it to monitor fair labour standards and procurement procedures and to assist in the rooting out of the endemic corruption that exits due to the high number of jobs and tenders given to cronies in the employment and tender award processes in the province.
Cosatu resolved in the final analysis that should the above issues not be resolved by the Premier to its satisfaction a rolling protest action will be embarked on in terms Section 77 of the Labour Relations Act.