He highlighted the rising cost of living, stagnated wages, and soaring inflation, especially among the youth, leading to poverty, inequality, and unemployment, the triple burden that needs to be confronted head-on and defeated. To eradicate poverty, inequality, and unemployment, he called for more efficient ways of managing the country’s resources, making sure that decision-making regarding the use of local resources is owned and controlled at the local level. “Empowering people by respecting the letter and spirit of the constitution, enlarging their rights, and giving them the space and means to determine their destiny is critical to achieving economic empowerment,” Dingake said.
He urged the people to be made aware of their rights and enabled to enforce them, under independent and impartial institutions. He called for an unbending commitment to democracy and the need for a transformative people’s constitution that the workers can proudly call their own. Dingake noted that the constitution is one of the best ways to guarantee workers’ rights, the right to life, human dignity, liberty, and freedom, as humans’ capacity to betray the aspirations of the people is an ever-present risk. “Under the transformative constitution, gender justice, equal pay for equal work, and the right to health are guaranteed, and access to the best health care should not depend on whether one is rich or poor. Workers need to invest in their time, energy, and resources to bring into being, in our lifetime, a transformative people’s constitution,” he said.
