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Picture: REUTERS/MIKE HUTCHINGS
Picture: REUTERS/MIKE HUTCHINGS

President Cyril Ramaphosa wants to decrease the unemployment rate drastically. However, his strategy is not going to work because it is flawed.

Many graduates are now employed as interns in government departments. They gain much-needed experience and a stipend that just keeps them alive. It looks like this trend is here to stay. The government exploits them. They can barely service their student loans. Their chances of getting full-time employment in the same departments are slim.

It must be noted that under the leadership of Ramaphosa public servants have been reduced to paupers, their lives shattered when the government decided to renege on a previously agreed salary settlement.

The unions representing public servants are tamed. They were never so docile in the past. I know public servants who can hardly afford to go to work on a daily basis. Everything has gone up, but their salaries have remained the same for three years.

The government wants the people to get employment just to survive, not to prosper. SA should not reduce its active workforce to beggars and paupers.

Ramaphosa has become a liability to his organisation. The voices of discontentment cannot be ignored for long. If one union goes to the streets that will be the end of this circus, in which Ramaphosa is a star.

Patrick Ngcobo,Via email

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