Johannesburg - The South African Black and Technical Careers Organisation (SABTCO), which represents black engineers, says it is shocked by the outrageous salaries that the South African government is paying Cuban engineers.
This comes after trade union Solidarity discovered that the Cuban engineers will each make R1million a year, and that they will be making more money than the average South African engineer who can do the same work. Part of the remuneration includes extensive fringe benefits such as flight tickets for holidays to Cuba, furnished accommodation, food and telephone costs.
The rationale behind deploying the 25 Cubans “was based on their rare and exclusive expertise in relation to maintaining and prolonging the lifespan of water and sanitation-related infrastructure”.
“We were never consulted on this, no engineering structure was consulted. If this is a political thing they must just tell us because this makes no sense,” said Solly Mabuza, secretary-general of SABTCO.
Mabuza said the organisation had written to the Minister of Human Settlements, Water and Sanitation, Lindiwe Sisulu, seeking an explanation on the matter. He said South African engineers were recognised as among the best in the world.
“The Cuban engineers cannot even match our standards, so that tells you that we are more equipped than them,” he said.
Mabuza said the employment of the Cuban engineers was an insult to many black engineers who were sitting without jobs.
“There are a lot of race issues in this sector. I am specialising in water and waste treatment works, I will confidently say that there are not more than 10 blacks and the racial walls are big. The legislation and the policies are being developed by people that serve the interests of the minority,” Mabuza said.
The organisation said it was planning to organise African engineers and eventually launch a trade union that would represent engineers.
“For the past 16 years we have been suppressed as black engineers. We struggle to get registered even, and when you get to the panel that does interviews it’s white people. We have never had a say. We have many black engineers that are not employed but the problem is that we are not organised as engineers,” Mabuza said.
He said black engineers were willing to work anywhere.
“They can’t say that we don’t want to stay in rural areas. We are from those rural places so they can’t say we don’t have expertise or we don’t want to work there,” Mabuza said.
The Star