The political T-shirt could have helped local industry

The ReDress Consultancy comment:

The 121 political parties and 748 independent candidates who participated in the recent municipal elections that took place in South Africa could have had a colossal constructive impact on the local clothing sector just by having their campaign T-shirts designed, and made in South Africa using local textiles. Two years ago it was reported that ANC T-shirts had been made in China, and I was informed that the DA had municipal campaign T-shirts made in India.   The clothing and textile sector is under immense strain from imports and further factory closures and job losses can be expected as a consequence of the wage negotiations currently taking place in this industry sector.  The clothing union, Sactwu, has demanded all apparel manufacturers to meet the wage Phase-in Agreement or face closure.

Why did Sactwu not insist that all political parties have their election campaign T-shirts made in South Africa?  How can they expect South African consumers to support the local clothing and textile industry when political parties don’t?

If we take the two bigger political parties: The ANC and DA and estimate that they each had a conservative 25000 T-shirts made at a reasonable cost of R10 each then one of these parties could have contributed to the salary of a qualified machine operator for nearly 10 years if the clothing operator earned the prescribed year end wage of R465 a week.

Over two million in much needed revenue could have been injected into the clothing sector if we estimate that each of the 121 parties that campaigned had made 2000 shirts at the same cost of R10.each.

Sadly though, I am sure most political T-shirts were not made in South Africa, however, to be fair if any political party or one of the independent candidates were proudly South African then well done.