The Department of Agriculture insists its funding of the Black Association of the Wine and Spirit Industry is above-board.
|||Cape Town - The Department of Agriculture said there was nothing untoward about it funding the Black Association of the Wine and Spirit Industry (Bawsi).
This comes after Agri SA president Johannes Moller called for Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson to explain “the state’s role in the Western Cape (farm) labour unrest” between November and January.
Bawsi’s president Nosey Pieterse, through the guise of an offshoot union the Building and Allied Workers Union of South Africa (Bawusa), played a major role in mobilising farmworkers to strike and demand higher wages and better living conditions throughout the province. The end result of the violent strikes, which saw vineyards torched and the deaths of three people, was a 52-percent increase in the minimum wage for the sector.
Pieterse admitted to the Cape Argus that he had received money after applying for funding from the department in July.
The reporting of this in the media last week lead Moller to challenge Joemat-Pettersson.
Mokutule Kgobokoe, the department’s chief director of Sector Capacity Development, responded to the Cape Argus’s questions about the funding by explaining that a damning 2011 Human Rights Watch report on the “appalling working conditions” of farmworkers in the Western Cape had prompted the department to make funding available for NGOs working with farmworkers.
After studying its profile and proposal, the department was convinced that Bawsi could assist in addressing the plight of farmworkers.
The funding (R4-million for a period of two years) was granted under the condition that Bawsi provided certain predefined services.
Cape Argus