Media Monitor 27 November 2009

Employees from recruitment company Quest were expected to protest outside Airways Park in Johannesburg on Friday. Quest was contracted by South African Airways for labour brokering.

Workers are unhappy about employment conditions and the relocation of some staff members to a different branch. Trade union Satawu’s Stone Kolotsi said they would demonstrate in front of SAA’s head offices until an agreement was reached with employers.

http://www.eyewitnessnews.co.za/articleprog.aspx?id=27367

1.2 ODAC goes to court to halt harassment of whistleblower

Zanele Ntuli, communications officer, Open Democracy Advice Centre, 26 November 2009

The Open Democracy Advice Centre (ODAC) has lodged an urgent application against the Greater Sekhukhune District Municipality at the Johannesburg Labour Court, on behalf of a municipal employee, Patrick Aphane. The purpose of this application is to obtain on an urgent basis, an interim order lifting his suspension and withdrawing the charges against him. The court will hear the application at 14:00 pm on the 27th of November 2009.

"We are asking the court to intervene and stop the Municipality from disciplining him for speaking out on corruption" said Alison Tilley, head of ODAC.

Patrick Aphane, a shop steward of the South African Municipal Workers Union (SAMWU) was suspended on 29 September 2009 for writing a letter to the Minister of Finance, Pravin Gordhan requesting a forensic audit of municipal finances as well as for confirming on SABC radio the existence of such a request from the union.

The union requested a forensic audit after reading the Auditor General's Report which highlighted serious financial irregularities as well as wasteful and fruitless expenditures. These included cell phone and airtime expenditure amounting to R 398 300. Of this amount R 277 484 was used by an employee who had stolen a Vodacom 3G card from the municipality and used it to enter the Vodacom 100 cars win a BMW competition. This BMW was won by the employee.

The Open Democracy Advice Centre (ODAC), a centre specialising in the area of whistle blowing and specialist in the Protected Disclosures Act (2000) "strongly condemns the action taken by the municipality to suspend Mr. Aphane. The Act was created to facilitate the disclosure of information by employees - victimisation has no place in our society." said Lorrain Martin, Program Manager of the Protected Disclosure Act Unit, ODAC

On the 16th of September 2009 the municipality released a Press Statement:

"The Municipality has a vehicle for use by the Mayor. The Council will sit down and decide what to do with this BMW. Most importantly, the message has been sent out that crime does not pay and that we must respect government resources," Magabe said. (Councillor Mogobo David Magabe)

On the 29th of October 2009 Mr Aphane was formally charged and suspended for bringing the name of the municipality into disrepute. The disciplinary hearing is scheduled for the 30th November 2009.

Labour Court - Johannesburg Street address 7th Floor Arbour Square Building, 86 Juta Street, Braamfontein, Johannesburg.

http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71654?oid=152601&sn=Detail

1.3 Cosatu: Civil servants 'useless'

Jan de Lange, Fin24, 27 November 2009

South Africa will fail unless a massive campaign is launched to change the work ethic in the public service, says Cosatu general-secretary Zwelinzima Vavi.

On Wednesday at a news conference at Cosatu House he declared that South Africa was experiencing a crisis and needed hard-working South Africans to turn the situation around.

The country, he said, needs public servants who realise that they are the "arms and legs" of the Reconstruction and Development Programme and of the Freedom Charter.

Without them, our health and education systems cannot be reformed, and the fight against crime and corruption cannot be won.

One of the biggest problems in the public service is the complete absence of management expertise.

Managers are not managing, he insists. Other officials are useless and inappropriately deployed, and unable to perform the jobs to which they have been assigned.

Earlier this week Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma apparently briefed Cosatu's central executive committee on conditions in her department.

She stated that there was a generally poor standard of service delivery, and even cited instances of insolence and laziness when she had visited offices unannounced.

http://www.fin24.com/articles/default/display_article.aspx?Channel=News_Home&ArticleId=1518-25_2563005&IsColumnistStory=False

1.4 Stealthy prison privatisation angers unions inside labour

Terry Bell, Business Report, 27 November 2009

More upheavals are in store for the South African prisons service, and the labour movement will be at the centre of them. But only some of these relate to the tender-rigging scandal exposed in a briefing to Parliament last week by Special Investigations Unit (SIU) head Willie Hofmeyr.

Hofmeyr informed parliamentarians about the results of an SIU investigation into bribery and corruption involving close to R2 billion in tenders to the Department of Correctional Services. Central to this is the politically well-connected and controversial Bosasa Operations, one of the companies approached a year ago to tender for the construction and management of four maximum security prisons.

Hofmeyr did not mention the tenders or the planned new "private" prisons to be constructed in the Western Cape, Eastern Cape and Gauteng. In fact, none of the union federations and neither of the unions organising in the sector were aware this week that private sector tenders had been sought and were being evaluated.

Apart from Bosasa, three other partnership companies "with BEE (black economic empowerment) components" were invited to tender for the prisons to be built near Paarl and in Nigel, Klerksdorp and East London. They are Geo Group of the US, and two British-based prison operators, Kaylyx Services and the GSL subsidiary of security company Group 4.

According to a Correctional Services Department source, the tenders closed on April 30 and construction is set to start next May with completion in 18 months.

This news has already started to cause consternation throughout the labour movement, but it also comes at a time when the trade unions in the sector are at their weakest for many years. Problems that have festered for more than a decade have begun to surface, some of them prompted by the SIU investigation, with its confirmation of rumours of high-level corruption that have circulated for years.

The report of the 2001 commission headed by Judge Thabani Jali painted a grim picture of ill discipline, nepotism, maladministration and gross abuses when it was released in 2006. Jali's probe also triggered a secret video by convicts in the Grootvlei prison in 2002 that revealed horrendous abuses and gross corruption.

Jali pointed out the problems and conflicts of interest arising when managers and staff were on the same union. But although some adjustments were made, the system carried on much as before.

Yet, as early as 1999, then president Nelson Mandela, speaking at the opening of Parliament about the public sector, noted: "Quite clearly there is something wrong with a society where warders chase away management and appoint their own friends to lead institutions." He was reacting to complaints that the system was riddled with ill discipline, nepotism and corruption.

The unspoken targets in that speech were mainly members of some branches of the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru), the majority union in the correctional services sector. The other union in the department is the Public Servants Association (PSA), which accounts for nearly 40 percent of the unionised staff.

While Mandela was correct, the SIU probe indicates that responsibility for the greatest corruption is to be found at higher political, business and managerial levels and extends outside the prisons. But the issues of ill discipline, nepotism and of some unionists acting more like prison gangs than union members are also now coming to a head.

Some sort of turning point appears to have been reached, especially on the issue of managers and staff being in the same trade union. In the days of the struggle against apartheid, this unity made sense as anti-racists at all levels battled against a racist establishment.

"But then we ended up with a breakdown in discipline," says Christo van Rensburg, a former Popcru member and a deputy director based at Malmesbury Prison. In the democratic trade union tradition, shop stewards, who wield power within the union, were almost exclusively drawn from rank and file warders and they exercised authority, particularly over middle managers in the same union.

"In some cases it was victimisation of the managers," says Van Rensburg, who is now president of the newly-formed SA Public Service Managers' Union (Sapsmu). The union, which is seeking legal advice on formal recognition, is claimed to be the first of its kind in the country.

While Sapsmu draws most of its membership from the prisons service and ex-Popcru members, some police officers have joined. There are executive members such as Johan Neethling, a former PSA official.

However, there is still considerable disquiet among rank and file unionists. This has led to a breakaway SA Correctional Services Workers' Union being formed in KwaZulu-Natal. As with Sapsmu, the majority of the new union's founders are former members of Popcru.

With the exception of Sapsmu, which Van Rensburg says has "not yet formulated a position on that", all the unions and the four national federations are opposed to the privatisation of prisons.

However, Sapsmu's general manager is former Popcru and PSA member Stephen Korabie, who recently retired as managing director of the public-private partnership operating the Makhado prison.

"I am giving them advice and handling administration for them until they get off the ground," he says. He acts as a consultant to private companies pitching to build and manage local lock-ups.

He admits he expects "all hell to pay" from the unions when the tender decisions are announced. But he also expects them to be a "done deal".

"The companies were asked to tender and spent millions of rands preparing their documents. They could sue if the process is stopped," he says.

http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=553&fArticleId=3453725

1.5 Private prisons could undercut decent work goal

Terry Bell, Business Report, 27 November 2009

Even that generally more conservative public sector union, the Public Servants Association (PSA), is opposed to plans for four privately built and operated prisons.

"We don't necessarily oppose all privatisation, but we certainly feel that prisons should not be in private hands," says PSA deputy general manager Manie de Clerq.

The spokesman for the majority union in the prisons service, the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru), was taken aback when confronted with the news that tenders had been invited for four public-private partnership (PPP) prisons. It was the first he had heard of it.

Popcru led a vociferous campaign against the privately built and operated prisons in Makhado and Bloemfontein.

Federation of Unions of SA general secretary Dennis George was shocked to hear about the new prisons plan. "We have heard nothing about this and we oppose it. International studies show that outsourcing destroys decent work," he said.

He pointed to the fact that industries based in US prisons were now a major contributor to job losses in the US.

National Council of Unions general secretary Manene Samela said he was "completely against this" when told of the plan. He maintained that inviting tenders for PPP prisons was "against everything we are discussing at Nedlac about building a developmental state".

Confederation of SA Workers Unions general secretary Khulile Nkushubana dismissed the plan as "madness". According to him "the world is already reeling from the legacy of Thatcher and Reagan, we want no more of this".

The main fear voiced by the unions was that private prisons were the thin end of the wedge to introduce cut-price, convict-staffed industries such as those in the US. This is a growing and profitable sector of the US economy, producing everything from jeans and lingerie to golf balls and furniture for sale on the open and export market.

"But we're not like that here," said Stephen Korabie, a former head of Makhado's PPP prison and a consultant to companies operating prisons. "We have workshops where prisoners are given skills training, but there is nothing commercial about it."

http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=553&fArticleId=5263251

2 South Africa

2.1 Cosatu says Malema call for nationalisaton ‘lacks substance’

Antony Sguazzin, Bloomberg, 27 November 2009

The call by the African National Congress Youth League, led by Julius Malema, for the nationalization of South African mines “lacks substance,” Sdumo Dlamini, the president of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, said, according to the Johannesburg-based Mail & Guardian newspaper.

“The worry is that once you allow this debate to go on in this form you run the risk of neutralizing and missing its essence,” he said, according to the newspaper, adding that the group still backs the concept.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601116&sid=a7LQe93jMkmc

2.2 Cosatu: Reserve Bank should target employment

Gordon Bell, Mail & Guardian, 27 November 2009

The central bank should target employment when deciding on interest rates, and worry less about inflation when the economy is struggling, a top Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) official said on Thursday.

Head of policy Chris Malikane also said in an interview with the weekly Financial Mail magazine that the country should rather print money than take on debt.

The alliance of the African National Congress, Cosatu and South African Communist Party agreed earlier this month to review the mandate of the South African Reserve Bank, to broaden it from merely targeting inflation.

The powerful trade union group wants the rand currency to weaken, interest rates slashed and inflation targeting -- the bank is tasked with keeping consumer inflation at between 3% and 6% -- scrapped.

It says the policy has led to rates staying too high, hurting the poor and costing the economy jobs during its first recession in nearly two decades.

Cosatu has gained more influence this year after helping Jacob Zuma rise to the head of the ANC and government, and has been pushing for the new president to shift away from a previously conservative, market-friendly stance. The comments give a clearer picture of Cosatu thinking.

Malikane -- an economics professor at Johannesburg's Wits University -- said targeting only one variable limited the extent to which the central bank could manage the economy.

"The key variable to include is employment. And to target employment you need the to use the growth rate as an intermediate target."

Interest rates

He said interest rates should be adjusted to line up with growth, even if this meant negative real interest rates.

"If we maintain a positive interest rate while there is a negative growth rate, government spending can only generate huge debt." South Africa's Reserve Bank has cut its repo rate by five percentage points since December last year, but at 7% Cosatu says it is still too high given the economy has been in recession. Inflation eased to 5,9% in October.

It emerged from the slump in the third quarter but consumers remain under severe pressure. Almost a million jobs have been lost so far this year.

Malikane said targeting demand to fight inflation did not benefit the poor, as the good they spent money on, such as food and electricity, were influenced by monopolistic behaviour.

Printing money to boost the economy would be a better option than taking on debt -- as the Treasury has announced it will do over then next three years to plug a tax hole.

"Why borrow when we can print money?" he asked.

This, though, should be measured so as not to hurt the economy and done in conjunction with lowering interest rates and weakening the currency.

"But in the process of stimulating the economy, we should make sure we don't overprint. It's better to have 10% inflation and the protection of one million jobs than inflation of 6% and the loss of one million jobs," Malikane said.

Cosatu secretary general Zwelinzima Vavi on Wednesday called for the rand to be 10 to the dollar. It was trading at about 7,40 on Thursday. The central bank has said it will not intervene to influence the rand, and government has vowed to stick to a free floating exchange rate policy. – Reuters

http://www.mg.co.za/article/2009-11-26-cosatu-reserve-bank-should-target-employment

2.3 Gordhan prepares for Cosatu discussions

Stephen Grootes, Eyewitness News, 27 November 2009

Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said on Thursday inflation targeting was just one tool to manage an economy.

He added he was looking forward to discussions with Cosatu and other stakeholders about how to change the macro economic policy.

Cosatu said earlier this week it wanted the Reserve Bank to stop using interest rates to control inflation.

Gordhan said he was not going to pre-judge how these economic discussions would go.

His comments could be the strongest indication the Reserve Bank’s mandate may change next year.

http://www.eyewitnessnews.co.za/articleprog.aspx?id=27376

2.4 SA's economic recovery will be slow

Sapa & Diane Macpherson, East Coast Radio, 27 November 2009

We've heard the news this week that the recession's over, but Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan has cautioned that South Africa's economic recovery will not be a fast process.

He says job creation is going to be slower than what they'd like it to be.

Gordhan's been speaking to the press following his meeting with union federation, Fedusa, yesterday.

Gordhan says he had shared with Fedusa the joy of the country's latest positive GDP data, "as mild as it might be".

"The graphs are beginning to tick upwards but we need to exercise caution."

Gordan's predicted that growth will come in at 1.5 percent next year, however he's added that there are other predictions that it could rise above two-percent in 2010.

Meanwhile, on the National Health Insurance scheme, Gordhan says it's "a work in progress".

He says early in the new year there'll be an announcement on the consultation path to be followed.

http://www.ecr.co.za/kagiso/content/en/east-coast-radio/east-coast-radio-mobile-show-biz?oid=495815&sn=Mobile%20news%20detail&pid=171904&SA-s-economic-recovery-will-be-slow

2.5 Cosatu criticises banks on transformation

Business Report, 26 November 2009

The Congress of SA Trade Unions on Thursday criticised a banking organisation for its decision to abolish its Financial Sector Charter Council for transformation.

"The banks are showing their true colours after years of undermining the Charter's attempts to measure financial sector transformation in an independent and objective forum," said Cosatu in a statement.

On Wednesday, Banking Association of SA (Basa) managing directory Cas Coovadia told reporters that his organisation would pull out of the Charter Council "in a responsible way".

He said this was necessary because the council was comprised of organisations which were too diverse.

"A lesson we learnt from this was that the inclusion of a broad spectrum of interests with very different agendas inhibits progress," said Coovadia.

Rather than use the council, Coovadia said affected communities and organisations could appeal directly to the government, who Basa would work with directly.

"The truth is that the banks do not want to be in any structure that they do not control exclusively and in their own profit-maximising interests," Cosatu said.

"They have been unwilling partners in the Charter process from the day they reluctantly accepted that it would include the constituencies representing their customers, the organised labour and community groups."

The Cosatu statement promised that labour and community groups would not accept "divide and rule" and asked government not to co-operate with Basa. - Sapa

http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=5263097&fSectionId=552&fSetId=662

2.6 Structural inflation cannot be tamed with interest rates, economists say

Ethel Hazelhurst, Business Report, 27 November 2009

A team of economists say policymakers must look beyond interest rates to deal with the underlying causes of South Africa's chronically high inflation. Their call comes as the economy fights its way out of a recession and a controversy rages around the country's relatively high interest rates.

Carel van Aardt of Unisa's Bureau for Market Research, Charlotte du Toit of the University of Pretoria's African Institute for Economic Modelling and Chris Harmse, the chief economist at Dynamic Wealth, presented their research findings in Pretoria yesterday.

They identified the sources of structural inflation - in other words that part of consumer inflation that is due to flaws in the way the economy works and therefore does not respond to changes in demand or changes in interest rates.

Their findings explain why inflation remained above the Reserve Bank's target range for two-and-a-half years, despite a 5 percentage point hike in the repo rate between June 2006 and June last year.

Former Reserve Bank governor Tito Mboweni made a similar point when he referred to structural problems, including administered prices like Eskom's massive tariff hikes.

The bank's commitment to its inflation target has angered trade unions and others and made the government's inflation targeting policy highly controversial. Rates have been cut by 5 percentage points since December and the bank's repo rate is once more at 7 percent, but Cosatu is calling for it to be cut further to 3 percent.

The economists and the federation find common ground in their view that high interest rates are a blunt instrument in the current environment. In fact the economists argue that the interest rate hikes were inflationary because they had a greater impact on the costs of firms than on demand.

Cosatu is unlikely to find the economists' prescriptions palatable because a strong rand and flexible labour rules are part of their policy package.

Van Aardt and Du Toit argue that too much is expected of monetary policy and say inflation can only be addressed by a package of measures because the underlying causes are varied.

Among the rigidities identified is the pricing behaviour of certain companies, which respond to a fall in sales by increasing prices. A number of domestic motor manufacturers, for instance, raised their prices this year even as vehicle sales tumbled.

A related problem is that sections of the economy are not competitive and companies often acquire dominant positions in the market, which allows them to dictate prices or form cartels.

Another structural issue is a range of shortages which affect production costs. These include shortages of skills, technology, electricity or other inputs. Poor service delivery is another costly constraint identified. In addition there are regulatory costs.

Because of these constraints, only 48 percent of items in Statistics SA's consumer inflation basket respond to changes in interest rates. So high interest rates fail to directly moderate demand in the economy, but work only once people start losing their jobs, according to the analysts.

Moreover, Du Toit and Van Aardt argue that monetary policy can only push inflation below 4.5 percent temporarily, and they point out that since inflation targeting was introduced in 2000, inflation has fallen within the target range less than half of the time.

For high interest rates to work effectively, cutting inflation without destroying demand in the economy, the problem must be tackled across a broad front, they argue.

http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=552&fArticleId=5263629

2.7 Sisulu in blistering attack on Sexwale

Caiphus Kgosana, Political Bureau, Cape Times, 27 November 2009

Defence and Military Veterans Minister Lindiwe Sisulu has launched a blistering attack on Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale, accusing him of failing to come up with new programmes and for claiming credit for initiatives she introduced while she was still minister of housing.

In a blunt message delivered yesterday, Sisulu noted that Sexwale "has not launched a single project" since he took over the portfolio.

The extraordinary attack by one cabinet minister on another appears to have been triggered by revelations that the Department of Housing, since renamed, spent more than R22 million during Sisulu's tenure on a play, performances of which Sexwale has halted.

What sparked Sisulu's ire appears to have been comments by Sexwale on 702

What sparked Sisulu's ire appears to have been comments by Sexwale on Gauteng-based talk radio station 702, when he said that he had "no time for plays and theatre that have nothing to do with building houses".

The Cape Times reported yesterday that the industrial theatre production A re Ageng Mzanzi (Let's Build South Africa) netted R5,5m for a production company owned by former soapie actor Mpho Tsedu.

In a terse statement released yesterday, Sisulu told Sexwale, who was in Boksburg telling reporters that 40 000 RDP homes were so defective they would have to be demolished and rebuilt, to "spend some time in the office reading reports and cabinet memos from 2004".

She said these would inform him that the human settlements concept was not new, but had actually been approved in 2004, the year she took over as minister of housing

The name of the department was changed after the elections, as part of a broader reconfiguration of government under President Jacob Zuma.

Failed to respond to repeated calls and SMSs

Sisulu told Sexwale that housing developments such as Cosmo City in Gauteng, built during her tenure, were based on the very same human settlements model.

Sisulu, a national working committee member of the ANC, sees herself as politically senior to Sexwale, who only sits on the ruling party's national executive committee. Her length of experience as a cabinet minister is also much greater.

She defended the decision to commission the play, saying it was necessary to inform the public about new government plans for housing.

"He (Sexwale) will discover that when you implement a new plan and a housing project, you need to communicate with all stakeholders. Beneficiaries of government housing programmes must be educated on their responsibilities, how they can economically benefit from the project, how to report fraud and corruption and to ensure that contractors do not take advantage of them."

Sisulu said a number of projects Sexwale had claimed credit for, including plans to repair defective RDP houses at a cost of R1 billion, and bringing in the Special Investigating Unit to investigate low-cost housing fraud, had been initiated on her watch.

"Noting that since his appointment, the minister has not launched a single project, and we have not seen his plan for human settlements which differs from the one approved and launched in 2004, (and) based on five years' experience and delivery of over 1,5 million houses, we are convinced that when the minister starts building houses or finalising his priorities he will realise that community participation and consumer education is central to housing delivery," Sisulu said.

Sexwale's spokesperson Chris Vick failed to respond to repeated calls and SMSs.

Sisulu's lashing of Sexwale could lie in the distrust some senior ANC leaders have for the former business mogul, who harboured his own presidential ambitions before throwing in his lot with Zuma on the eve of the ANC's Polokwane conference in 2007. It is believed Sexwale has not abandoned his presidential ambitions and has his sights set on the ANC's next elective conference in Mangaung in 2012.

DA housing spokesperson Butch Steyn has written to auditor-general Terence Nombembe asking for a special investigation into the play.

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=6&art_id=vn20091127043531394C548812

2.8 Cronin, ANC Youth League end their quarrel

Mail & Guardian, 27 November 2009

The African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) and South African Communist Party deputy general secretary have buried the hatchet after their spat over the nationalisation of the mines.

"We are particularly relieved that Comrade Cronin engages with the Youth League's call for nationalisation after re-reading the conceptual framework we released in July 2009," the league said in a statement on Wednesday -- after Cronin published a piece explaining his position and apologising for aspects of the publication that started the furore.

"The Youth League holds Comrade Jeremy Cronin in high regard and appreciates the fact that he is one of the best intellectuals produced by the revolutionary movement," it said.

The league and the SACP clashed over the issue after Cronin published an analysis of the issues surrounding mine nationalisation. In it, he criticised ANCYL president Julius Malema and the league's call for nationalisation, saying: "Comrade Malema hasn't always helped his case with off-the-wall sound-bytes.

"The impression of a policy being made on the hoof, individualistically, is reinforced by the fact that we are yet to see any serious attempt at a collective policy document on this matter from the ANCYL."

Malema responded to this by describing the piece penned by Cronin as "openly reactionary".

He said he did "not need the permission of white political messiahs to think".

Malema described it as "sad" that Cronin "decided to isolate me" from a league resolution in which it outlined its stance on nationalisation: ".... the state should be custodian of the people in its ownership, extraction, production and trade of mineral wealth beneath the soil, monopoly industries and banks".

On mineral beneficiation, Malema said Cronin reduced the league's call for this to an "obsession with bling".

Cronin then wrote another piece, clarifying his position and showing that it was not vastly different from that of the league. He apologised for suggesting "more in jest than seriously" that Malema thought of beneficiation largely in terms of bling.

"It is here that I made my own misstep. I was trying to introduce a touch of polemical spice into what can sometimes be a dry topic," he said. "It was a silly comment and I apologise. I had not realised that ... Malema had such a delicate skin."

The league accepted his apology, saying he "has risen above narrow squabbles and accepts on areas he erred".

"Comrade Jeremy's latest intervention proves that the debate on nationalisation is a complex question," the league said.

The league would "be engaging with all progressive forces to consolidate the most coherent, developmental and helpful model of nationalisation of mines, which will benefit all people". – Sapa

http://www.mg.co.za/article/2009-11-26-cronin-anc-youth-league-end-their-quarrel

2.9 Afro-communists vs Afro-nationalists in the ANC

Patrick Laurence, Politicsweb, 26 November 2009

Patrick Laurence asks whether there could be a third way

As the ruling African National Congress increasingly threatens to polarise into mutually hostile radical left and radical right factions, or opposing Afro-communist and Afro-nationalist camps, an important question arises.

It is simply whether there is a viable third way, not in the sense of a coalescence of indecisive moderates but, rather, in the sense of an energising coalition of South Africans committed to chartering a middle way - to borrow a term from Buddhist philosophy - to the future. The short answer is that there are two possible middle ways.

The first is for centrists in the ANC to assert themselves forcefully and to offer a revived form of the leadership exemplified by Nelson Mandela during the transition from the old South Africa to the new, as well during his five-year term of office as South Africa's first democratically elected president.

The second is for the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) to shed its image as a party of opposition and to succeed in its stated ambition to become a party of government. This through a vigorous campaign to recruit new members from the at least 13 million South Africans of voting age who had either failed to register to vote in the 2009 general election, or who did but - for one reason or another - failed to cast their ballots on April 22.

Before assessing the chances of either of these options succeeding, it is useful to analyse the recent manifestations of the uneasy relations between the rival factions in the ANC.

Following the attack launched on the communists by Billy Masethla, a former director-general of the national intelligence agency and a member of the ANC national executive committee, Julius Malema, the president of the ANC Youth League, pressed for Gwede Mantashe, the ANC secretary general, to resign his position of national chairperson of the South African Communist Party (ASCP) .

Malema's demand - which has been, determinedly resisted by Mantashe - is redolent with suspicion that Mantashe is using his high ranking post in the ANC to promote the aims of the SACP. This reinforces Masethla's accusation that the left is trying to take over the ANC for its own ends. There is an echo in Malema's pressure of Mantashe of the questioning attitude adopted by Peter Mokoba, an earlier ANC Youth League president, towards the arrangement that allows members of the SACP to hold dual membership of the ANC.

It should be noted, too, that Malema has sarcastically referred to Jeremy Cronin, the deputy secretary of the SACP and perhaps its leading theorist, as a "white messiah". This after Cronin sought to tutor the Youth League on the need for it to offer a serious and collectively thought out case for nationalising the mines instead of tried to "make policy on the hoof."

Furthermore Malema has opposed a call by Buti Manamela, his counterpart in the Young Communist League (YCL) for Thabo Mbeki, the former president, to be indicted on charges of genocide for the death of tens of thousands of South Africans from AIDS. The gravamen of the charge being that Mbeki wilfully refused to make anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) available to people living with AIDS.

Malema's rationale for rejecting the call is that the ANC and its alliance partners should not prosecute their own members; a proposition which, if extended to its logical conclusion, could be offered as an excuse not to indict ANC members for, say, embezzlement of public funds or the rape of female comrades by macho ANC men.

In an escalation in the verbal war between the YCL and the ANC Youth League, Manamela has dismissed Malema as a petty bourgeois capitalist who has little or no sympathy for the indigent South Africans who died because ARVs were denied to them during the Mbeki presidency.

But to return the issue of whether the ANC itself can establish a viable middle way between the communists and nationalists: President Jacob Zuma seems an unlikely candidate to rally the centrists against the radicals on at either end of the political spectrum.

He is too indebted to the left for his victory over Mbeki at the ANC's national conference at Polokwane in December 2007. He is moreover inclined to seek approval from his immediate interlocutors, an approach which taints him as a ditherer and which, all too often, loses rather than wins him friends.

Nothing is written in stone, however. Zuma may prove to be capable of rallying the centre to stand firm in defence of constitution and its underlying values of equality and freedom under the law. Though the manner in which he avoided standing trial on charges of corruption can hardly be considered an auspicious portent of his commitment to the rule of law.

Nor, for that matter, can his appointment of Menzi, Simelane as the new national director of public prosecutions (NDPP); bearing in mind that Frene Ginwala - who chaired the inquiry into whether Vusi Pikoli was a fit and proper person to serve as NDPP -chastised Simelane for interfering with the national prosecuting authority's constitutional duty to prosecute without fear, favour of prejudice.

Zuma's leadership style brings to mind the words of W B Yeats about the centre not holding, the best lacking conviction and the worst being "filled with passionate intensity."

The recent 50^th anniversary of the formation of the Progressive Party (PP) in November 1959 is pertinent to the prospects of the DA serving as the nucleus of a coalition of middle way parties powerful enough to withstand the antagonism of the radical parties at the opposition ends of the left right continuum.

The reason why the PP is relevant to the DA is simple: the PP went through several mutations to become the Democratic Party (DP), which, in turn, went though a mutation in 2000 to become the DA. A single line connects the PP to the DA.

The trajectory, which traces the progress of the PP in all its mutations from its formation in 1959 to the establishment of the Democratic Party (DP) in 1989 and the DA in mid -2000, offers some hope to present day leaders and DA.

The PP started its quest to win a place for itself in the old South Africa disastrously. In the 1961 elections, the first after the foundation of the PP, all but one of the 12 parliamentarians who had broken away from the moribund United Party a short while before lost their seats.

Thereafter, however, the PP rose steadily to become the official opposition party in the late 1970s. In the years that followed it played an important role in persuading the white electorate - and, as importantly, the ruling National Party (NP) - of the need for a negotiated settlement based on universal adult suffrage and the equality of all South Africans.

It is no exaggeration to conclude that the NP appropriated DP policy when it presented itself as the party of settlement by releasing Mandela from prison and rescinded the decrees outlawing the ANC, the SACP and the Pan Africanist Congress.

The DP began its campaign in post-apartheid South Africa on an equally disastrous note, winning less than 2% of the vote and a mere 7 seats. Fifteen years later it defines itself as a party of hope, having won more than 16 % of the vote (and 67 seats) in the April 22 general election, as well as emerging as the governing party in the Western Cape.

If the challenge facing the PP in 1959 was to persuade a generally conservative, and fearful, white electorate that the enfranchisement of the black majority was unavoidable if a revolution was to be averted; the challenge facing the DA today is to build on its gains by attracting an increasingly large proportion of the black vote and by forming tactical coalitions with like-minded parties.

It is a tough ask. The DA can, however, take comfort in the description of the ANC by Tony Leon, its immediate past leader, as a "large black United Party."

The actual UP is remembered as a party which sought to appease diametrically opposing interests and which eventually collapsed under the weight of its own contradictions, losing phalanxes of members and representatives to the Progressives through the 1970s. The establishment of the Congress of the People by ANC dissidents late last year may be a sign of the ANC succumbing to the same process of inner decay and creeping decrepitude.

http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71619?oid=152615&sn=Detail

3 International

3.1 African unions’ struggle is for a world free from exploitation

International Transport Workers' Federation, 26 November 2009

The fight for a better world, free of exploitation, was at the heart of African unions’ objectives, delegates were told during a closing speech at the ITF Africa regional conference today.

ITF president, Randall Howard was summing up during his final address at the conference, which has been taking place this week in Senegal. He said: “Our struggle aimed to achieve a better world free of exploitation of one person by another to promote a value system of solidarity, human and trade union rights and equality, social justice, a socialist world.” He added that it was crucial always to remember that ITF unions existed to serve transport workers. In addition, Howard spoke to the youth and women of the region urging them to stand for leadership positions.

Attended by 150 trade unionists from 33 countries, the conference also endorsed a declaration outlining strategic priorities for the region. These included recommendations from the youth symposium and women’s conference held prior to a meeting on organising and campaigning. Others called for improved communications in the region, engagement with European Union proposals for cooperation with Africa, input into the development of transport policies at national centres and support for sustainable transport and global warming. Participants also endorsed proposals for benchmarking as a way of learning from each other and motivating each other to build strong union networks, which are better able to implement fully the ITF organising globally strategy.

Participants also condemned the racist and anti-trade union actions of DHL in South Africa and supported the South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union struggle against these practices.

Joseph Katende, ITF Africa regional secretary commented: “ITF Africa affiliates must take their commitment and responsibilities in running the ITF to a higher level. This definitely requires them to adopt change in whatever they are doing.”

Conference also nominated the following people to stand for election tothe ITF executive board: Susan Ayayi, Kenya Dockers' Union; Emmanuel Mensah, General Transport, Petroleum and Chemical Workers' Union of TUC; Zenso Mahlangu, South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union (SATAWU); Bayla Sow, Syndicat Unique des Transports Aériens du Sénégal; and as chair: Abner Ramakoglo, SATAWU; as vice-chairs: Gideon C Ogbuji, National Union of Air Transport Employees; Magbe Bangoura, Fédération Nationale des Transports et Marins Pêcheurs de Guinée and Marcel Zante, FIOST.

http://www.itfglobal.org/news-online/index.cfm/newsdetail/3987

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