Cosatu wants ANC to fire the whites if it wins in Western Cape

If the ANC wins the Western Cape in the May 7 general election, Cosatu will ask it to fire more than half the white senior civil servants.

"Their employment would have to be terminated -- and within a year," Congress of SA Trade Unions provincial secretary Tony Ehrenreich was quoted by the Cape Argus as saying.

"They'll have to go and start their own businesses. They are better placed to start their own businesses because they have both the networks and the historical infrastructure to do this."

He said the "sunset clauses" in relation to jobs were gone, and so should "continued white preference".

"The most recent figures we have are that senior management at the provincial government is made up of at least 57 percent whites," he said.

Whites made up only about 16 percent of the population.

"That means whites are over-represented in terms of the demographics of the Western Cape -- so roughly half the whites in senior positions in provincial government would have to go," he said.