If you want to deal with the global economic crisis, you shouldn't be spending your time on Botox treatments, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said.

His dig at Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille came in a speech to a Cosatu-organised ANC election rally attended by several hundred shop stewards in Cape Town on Wednesday.

Speaking about workers' concerns for their jobs in the current worldwide slump, he said it was easy to blame capitalism or the banks for what was happening.

However the most important thing was to "sit down and find out how we deal with the problem".

"You know, there are some parties... you ask them about this, they say: 'crisis, what crisis. We don't know that there's a crisis'.

"They'll say to you, 'we've been too busy campaigning to know that there's a crisis'.

"Or, 'Maybe our leader's gone for new Botox or something, we're too busy to consider this crisis'."

Zille recently revealed that she has had Botox treatment to eliminate lines on her face.

Acting against drug dealing

Manuel also called for action against drug dealers.

"It's chemical warfare launched against our people," he said. "We must act to root it out.

"It's weapons of mass destruction against the children of workers."

He said if people in communities raised the issue with police, and the police did not act, they should appeal to police union Popcru.

Also speaking at the rally, SA Communist Party deputy general secretary Jeremy Cronin condemned the recent violent protest by taxi operators against proposed bus rapid transit systems.

He said warlords had the taxi industry in an iron grip, and they were stoking the violence in order to secure themselves a more lucrative slice of the benefits of the new system.

The police and other forces should ruthlessly stamp out this thuggery, said Cronin, who also chairs Parliament's transport portfolio committee.

"Communities are thoroughly sick of the way these guys operate," he said.

Everyone had the right to protest and negotiate.

"But what they cannot do is mess up the lives of working class communities."