Telkom`s planned labour force cuts came under the parliamentary spotlight yesterday with MPs mixing up the actual number of people affected and calling for competition in the fixed-line market.
The debate, which occurred late yesterday afternoon, was called for by the small Freedom Front+ (FF+) party, known to have close ties with trade union Solidarity, which has been at the forefront of the calls against the job cuts.
Solidarity and the Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) teamed up earlier this week and posted notices against the job cuts, in breach of Parliament security rules, at the entrances to the elected body.
FF+ leader Pieter Mulder accused the African National Congress (ANC)-led government of not carrying out its election promises of creating jobs.
The official opposition, the Democratic Alliance (DA), turned out to be a government ally, when its spokesman, Dene Smuts, corrected Mulder`s numbers and pointed out the affected posts were 4 000 over three years and not the 7 600 as claimed by him.
"Dr Mulder also got his numbers wrong on the June profit: it was R4.5 billion, not million. The answer is that government should get fixed-line competition going. We would welcome developments with the second national operator," Smuts said.
Telkom spokesman Ravin Maharaj confirmed that 4 181 jobs would be cut at Telkom over the next three years and 1 381 of these would be declared redundant in the current financial year.
The ANC`s position was carried by backbenchers Manyaba Rubben Mohlaloga and Nthibane Rebecca Mokota, as communications minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri and public enterprises minister Alec Erwin were absent.
Mohlanga said Telkom had responded to the RDP (Reconstruction and Development Programme) and that while job cuts were unfortunate, many of the employees had found positions with companies that were now doing business with Telkom.
Independent Democrats MP Vincent Gore bemoaned the fact that government was not taking the debate seriously by leaving it up to two junior MPs.
"What I find most distressing, however, is that the major shareholder in Telkom [government, which owns 39%] has kept far too quiet about the loss of income for all these workers. The ANC has unfortunately failed the workers and voters of Telkom," he said.
Gore said there must be more debate about the causes of these retrenchments, particularly the competitive environment, or rather the lack thereof, in which Telkom operates.
The DA`s Smuts expanded on her party`s idea of increasing Telkom`s shareholder base to more South Africans, "by creating a people`s consortium of stokvels, burial societies and ordinary South Africans".
"This would be instead of seeing our former minister (Jay) Naidoo or the former director-general of the Department of Communications, Andile Ngcaba, buying Thintana`s remaining 15% stake, and would instead expand Telkom`s employee share scheme to incentivise workers."
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