Media Monitor 9 November 2009

Ronnie Press, who has died in Bristol, England, at the age of 80, was a doctor of chemistry who provided technical support for ANC operatives in South Africa, including timing devices for bombs and grenades.

Together with his colleague Tim Jenkin, he founded an ANC committee to provide technical support to the armed struggle.

Their most noteworthy achievement was to devise a way of using a combination of computer, radio and telephone to encipher, decipher, send and receive top-secret messages between cadres in South Africa and the ANC leadership in Zambia.

For the first time, underground cadres were able to communicate safely and quickly with their superiors outside the country. Their messages were relayed via Press and Jenkin sitting in their aerial-festooned flats in the heart of London.

Their method was used extensively and with great success in Operation Vula, launched in 1988 to set up ANC leadership structures inside South Africa.

The system was also used to enable Nelson Mandela, after he was moved to a house in the grounds of Victor Verster prison in Paarl, to keep ANC leaders in Lusaka informed of the informal talks he had begun with the apartheid government.

Press was born in Johannesburg on August 28 1929 to working-class parents from the east of London, from whom he picked up a cockney accent which he never lost and an abiding commitment to the working class.

He went to Marist Brothers school, obtained a PhD in chemistry from Wits and lectured at the university for a couple of years before working as an analytical chemist in the private sector.

He was fired after leaving a note for the boss informing him he had gone to China and would be back shortly.

Press became general secretary of the textile workers' union, was quite militant and brought the workers out on strike a few times.

Although banned in 1955 he helped the Congress of Democrats, which included the SA Communist Party, of which he was a member, and the ANC, to organise the Congress of the People, which drew up the Freedom Charter.

In 1956, after the launch of the charter, he and 155 others were arrested for treason. The charges against him were dropped in 1958.

After being detained during the state of emergency after the Sharpeville massacre in 1960 Press left South Africa for England.

He returned briefly in the early 1990s to help the ANC prepare for the elections, but was mugged in Hillbrow on his way to ANC offices.

After going into exile he settled in Bristol where he taught chemistry at the polytechnic. He visited Lusaka periodically to demonstrate his latest timing devices.

Press was an unlikely revolutionary. He had a high-pitched voice, was conventional, formal and reserved, and kept largely to himself. He was difficult to get to know and readily admitted that he was not "one of the boys".

He was concerned about the environment and determined not to leave more of a carbon footprint than he could help.

He left instructions that he was to be buried in a cardboard box in an unmarked grave.

Nevertheless, he had no qualms about designing devices to blow people to pieces. War was war, he explained.

Alongside his underground work and teaching, he spent much of his married life caring for his wife, Sybil, after she developed mental problems. She died in 1989.

He is survived by his daughter, Estelle.

http://www.timeslive.co.za/sundaytimes/article183946.ece

1.2 Eleanor Kasrils dies

News24, 9 November 2009

Former president Thabo Mbeki on Monday conveyed his condolences to the family of former intelligence minister Ronnie Kasrils whose wife, Eleanor, died at the weekend.

"Mr Mbeki, who spoke to Mr Kasrils immediately upon learning of the tragic news, recalled Mrs Kasrils's role in the struggle against apartheid and her steadfast commitment to the building of a non-racial, non sexist and democratic South Africa post-1994," Mbeki's spokesperson Mukoni Ratshitanga said.

The Cape Times reported that she died aged 73 on Sunday after suffering a stroke.

It quoted Ronnie Kasrils as saying she collapsed at Constantiaberg Medi-Clinic in Cape Town.

The couple would have celebrated their 45th wedding anniversary next month - the "most wonderful, happy marriage", he said, adding that she did "some fantastic things" in her political work.

Tragedy

Mbeki said: "Comrade Eleanor's passing is not only tragic for Comrade Ronnie and his family. It is a tragedy for all of us who fought for freedom side by side with her.

"Sadly, yet another combatant in the noble army of freedom fighters has fallen."

Eleanor Kasrils was born in 1936 and joined the Congress of Democrats in 1960 after the Sharpeville massacre.

She participated in Umkhonto we Sizwe activities in Durban and was arrested in 1963 and went in exile with Ronnie Kasrils in the same year after escaping from custody.

She did work for the ANC in Tanzania and Britain and worked for the late ANC President Oliver Tambo.

Eleanor is survived by her husband, daughter Bridgette and sons Andrew and Christopher. SAPA

http://www.news24.com/Content/SouthAfrica/News/1059/bf33b21c93ec4ec2bac3f842d2711aac/09-11-2009-09-56/Eleanor_Kasrils_dies

1.3 ANC honours Eleanor Kasrils

Michelle Jones, IOL, 9 November 2009

Eleanor Kasrils, activist and wife of former intelligence minister Ronnie Kasrils, died on Sunday after suffering a stroke. She was 73.

Kasrils said Eleanor had suddenly collapsed and after just a few hours at Constantiaberg Medi-Clinic, died in the early afternoon.

The couple would have been married for 45 years next month - the "most wonderful, happy marriage", Kasrils said.

The couple returned to South Africa in 1992

Sounding emotional but calm, he said she had done "some fantastic things" in her lifetime's work for the Communist Party, the ANC and Umkhonto we Sizwe. In her last years she had been Kasrils' support: "My very strong support."

He described how she had been born in Scotland and moved to South Africa when she was just a year old.

She became involved in politics, becoming a member of the South African Congress of Democrats. She became the second white woman in the country to be arrested, when in 1963 she was held under the 90 Day Act because of her involvement in MK, Kasrils said.

After a few months of detention she managed to escape from police custody. The couple then left South Africa and lived in exile for nearly 30 years. During this time Eleanor worked for ANC president Oliver Tambo.

She later became a geologist and a technician and worked in London for the Inner London Education Authority.

'Behind every successful man there is a very good woman'

The couple returned to South Africa in 1992 and Eleanor again spent time working for Tambo.

ANC spokesperson Jackson Mthembu said on Sunday night the party would be saddened by the news of her death.

"In her own right, we could not have been enjoying the freedoms we have now if people with her stature where not there. And we will remember her as the wife of a very good leader and Minister of the ANC. Behind every successful man there is a very good woman. We wouldn't have got the leadership from comrade Ronnie if he didn't have a stable background.

"We will miss her dearly and we know her family will miss her even more and we extend our condolences to them."

South African Communist Party spokesperson Malesela Maleka said: "We express our deepest sympathy to comrade Ronnie and to his family."

He said a full statement would be released after consultation with family and party members.

Eleanor had a daughter, Brigid, from a previous marriage, and two grandchildren. She and Kasrils had two sons, Andrew and Christopher.

Kasrils said details of a memorial service would be made known towards the end of this week.

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?from=rss_Politics&set_id=1&click_id=6&art_id=nw20091108223303303C643256

2 Workers

2.1 Cosatu to march against racism

Sowetan, 9 November 2009

COSATU has threatened to bring the little farming town of Vryburg, North West, to a standstill today.

The labour federation and its ally, the SACP, have organised a march to the Ganyesa magistrate’s court where a farmer accused of setting his dog on a domestic worker will appear.

Cosatu provincial secretary Solly Phetoe said yesterday that they had organised the march because they believed the court was dealing with the matter in a racist manner.

“The farmer was found guilty but sentencing has been postponed four times. Why? We think this is a way to let the farmer off the hook,” Phetoe said.

He said the march would also be a protest against a local hospital, in which twins died at birth after their mother was told to go home because of the hospital’s poor healthcare facility.

Phetoe said the march would follow yesterday’s rally at Rustenburg’s Impala shaft 8, in which Cosatu and SACP wrapped up their campaign in support for National Health Insurance (NHI). – Sowetan Reporter

http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=1086455

2.2 SA union threatens strike at Anglo Coal

Esmarie Swanepoel, Creamer Media, 9 November 2009

The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) said on Monday that it had given diversified miner Anglo American seven days to respond, in writing, to the demands handed over, over the weekend.

NUM members from the Highveld region marched to Anglo American’s offices in Johannesburg on Saturday, to present a memorandum of demands relating to agreements reached between the Chamber of Mines and the mining company’s coal arm, Anglo Coal.

NUM spokesperson Lesiba Seshoka told Mining Weekly Online that if Anglo American did not respond within the provided time, or if the response was in its view unsatisfactory, the NUM would approach the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration for a certificate of nonresolution, and would subsequently undertake a strike action against the coal miner.

The demands included that agreements reached between the Chamber of Mines, and the coal arm of Anglo American, Anglo Coal, should be implemented. These agreements related to childcare facilities, funeral cover for dependents and overall transformation issues.

The union, on Friday, called for the speedy implementation of the funeral cover, which has been agreed on. It had expected this to be implemented as of August 2009.

The NUM further called on Anglo Coal to stop conducting compulsory HIV/Aids Voluntary Tests and Counselling (VCT).

Other demands included global shared services, job grading, and a stop to unilateral employment of contractors.

http://www.miningweekly.com/article/sa-union-threatens-strike-at-anglo-coal-2009-11-09

2.3 POPCRU celebrates 20th anniversary

IOL, 7 November 2009

Thousands of POPCRU members have started celebrating the 20th anniversary of their organisation at Seisa Ramabodu stadium in Bloemfontein, the SABC reported on Saturday.

The Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union was formed on November 5, 1989, in a house at Strand in the Western Cape.

The theme for the celebration is 20 years of advancing the working class struggle within the justice clusters.

Police Deputy Minister, Fikile Mbalula and Cosatu's General Secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi were expected to give messages of support.

POPCRU president, Zizamele Cebekhulu is also expected to deliver a key note address. – Sapa

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=139&art_id=nw20091107131915395C754410

2.4 Num marches to Anglo coal offices

Times, 7 November 2009

Mineworkers from Anglo Coal’s Mpumalanga operations marched to the company headquarters in Johannesburg to voice their grievances, the National Union of Mineworkers said.

Among demands listed on a memorandum handed over to company CEO Ben Magara, were salary adjustments and the immediate stop to the “victimisation of workers based on compulsory HIV/Aids voluntary tests and counselling results”, said spokesman Lefty Mashego.

“The company adjusted salaries of certain individuals... others have been left out and this is unfair because we all work for the same company,” he said.

The union also demanded that the company implement agreements reached at the Chamber of Mines including the building of child care facilities and the implementation of the funeral cover for dependants.

“It is our conviction that hence there has been an agreement [as far back as 2002/2003] on child care facilities, the company must build these facilities as a matter of urgency as non-compliance has compromised the dignity of its women workers,” Mashego said.

Workers who marched to the company’s headquarters on Marshall street in Johannesburg were bussed in from NUM’s Highveld branches like Goedehoop, New Denmark, Kriel Coal, New Vaal, Isibonelo and Grenside.

The company could not be immediately reached for comment but on Friday, it said it had noted the union’s intention to march “with disappointment”.

“Despite having all the forums at operational level and corporate level, designed to allow the union leadership to raise concerns, as well as having direct access to the executive team of Anglo Coal, the Anglo Coal leadership of NUM has opted to march to the Johannesburg office.

“In a letter sent to the Chief Executive Officer of Anglo Coal, Ben Magara, NUM cites racism, transformation as well as issues pertaining to the recognition agreement signed between the company and the union as the reasons for the march,” it said.

The company said it believed it had made significant progress on the issues that the NUM leadership had raised.

“We have shared information on these issues with them as we regard all employee representative organisations as partners in our business, be it on safety, employee benefits, HIV and AIDS, transformation and many other issues that affect our people,” Magara said.

He said he believed that the issues raised by the NUM could be resolved around a negotiating table.

“The company will endeavour to strengthen the relationship as well as support the negotiations in every way possible.”

http://www.timeslive.co.za/business/article184210.ece

2.5 NUM to strike if demands are not addressed

JP du Plessis, Eyewitness News, 7 November 2009

The National Union of Mineworkers says hundreds of its members will go on strike if its demands with Anglo Coal are not addressed.

Hundreds of people gathered outside Anglo American’s offices in the Johannesburg city centre on Saturday.

The union’s calls ranged from racial transformation to better living and working conditions.

Company officials stood alongside union representatives, listening as the demands were read out.

The National Union of Mineworkers is calling for pay increases, racial transformation, and the re-opening of clinics at mine sites.

“Some of the issues I had not known about, possibly they found it a good occasion to say everything that might be in their own wish list,” said Anglo Coal CEO Ben Magara.

The union says it will apply for permission to strike if it does not get a response in a week’s time.

http://www.eyewitnessnews.co.za/articleprog.aspx?id=25784

2.6 Cabinet approves new SANDF HIV policy

Leon Engelbrecht, DefenceWeb, 6 November 2009

Cabinet has approved a new HIV/AIDS policy for the South African National Defence Force (SANDF).

Cabinet spokesman Themba Maseko yesterday said the revised Policy on the Health Classification and Selective Deployment of Stable HIV Positive members has been approved.

“The new policy provides for the recruitment and selective deployment of HIV positive persons into the SANDF,”he said.

“This decision marks the culmination of a policy review process that was initiated in 2006 and is in compliance with a 2008 High Court decision that ruled that the existing policy was unconstitutional.

“The old policy excluded HIV positive persons from being recruited and external deployment. The Military Health Services structures will provide the necessary support to SANDF personnel,” he said.

The announcement comes days after a prominent AIDS pressure group praised President Jacob Zuma for ending the "state-supported denial" which had damaged efforts to beat the epidemic.

Reuters last week said the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) said Zuma had ushered in a new era by acknowledging the devastation AIDS inflicts, in a speech he made Thursday.

South Africa has one of the world's heaviest HIV caseloads and has been accused by activists of dragging its feet on the disease which kills an estimated 1000 people there every day.

At least 5.7 million of South Africa's 50 million population are infected.

In a speech to the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) on Wednesday last week, Zuma called for urgent measures to fight AIDS and an end to the huge stigma surrounding it.

"Though we have the largest antiretroviral programme in the world, we are not yet winning this battle. We must come to terms with this reality as South Africans," he said.

TAC said Zuma had taken an important step in the fight against the disease.

"With this speech state-supported AIDS denialism has been banished. The Treatment Action Campaign welcomes the ushering in of this new era, almost exactly ten years since former President Mbeki made a speech that began the era of state-supported denial," it said in a statement.

New SANDF policy

The South African Security Forces Union (SASFU) took the SANDF to court in May 2007 regarding its use of HIV testing with regards to employment, deployment, promotions and transfer, saying that the policies discriminated against HIV-positive (HIV+) members.

"Over the years the SANDF has justified its HIV testing policy and its implementation on such grounds as, the military has a duty to protect the Republic, there is a need to keep HIV prevalence low in the military, people living with HIV are medically unsuitable and unable to withstand stress, physical exercise, adverse climatic conditions, etc, foreign deployment conditions are too harsh for people living with HIV, HIV+ members pose a risk to others the need to comply with the United Nations regulations with regard to deployment of peacekeepers," SASFU said in a statement announcing its court bid.

SASFU was assisted by the AIDS Law Project (ALP), whose head at the University of the Witwatersrand, Mark Heywood, said there was no basis for the assumption that HIV infection in itself rendered a person physically unfit or mentally unstable.

When the matter went to court before Judge Claasen in the Gauteng North (Pretoria) High Court in May last year, the SANDF unexpectedly capitulated on a 14-year-old position and conceded its position was unconstitutional.

The SASFU application was thus made an order of court. The ALP afterwards said the order meant the SANDF could "no longer automatically exclude HIV positive people from recruitment, external deployment and promotion".

The military was further given six months from May 17 to amend its health classification policy to allow "for individualised health assessments of recruits and current members of the armed forces".

The deadline last November came and went with no policy forthcoming. By September this year SASFU was threatening to have defence minister Lindiwe Sisulu arrested for contempt of court.

http://www.defenceweb.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5111&Itemid=320

2.7 Holomisa calls for white paper on labour broking

Mail & Guardian, 9 November 2009

United Democratic Movement (UDM) leader Bantu Holomisa on Monday called for a white paper to be drafted to deal with labour broking.

Difficulties in unionising temporary workers could be behind the campaign to destroy the labour broking sector, Holomisa said.

The UDM had noted the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and South African Communist Party's continuous campaign against labour broking.

"Although we would love to believe that their concern is fuelled by principles, it seems much like an attempt to destroy a sector of the economy simply because it does not lend itself to unionisation.

"After all, the financial survival and political clout of Cosatu depends on membership numbers."

The UDM believed it could not just be an arbitrary decision.

"This must be handled with care. It's not fair to jeopardise people's employment and income. Indeed it is this type of heavy-handed behaviour that contributes to the flight of skills."

The UDM supported further regulation of the industry if a proper inquiry found that current regulation was insufficient. It was necessary to draft a white paper on the matter so that it could be extensively debated, Holomisa said. – Sapa

http://www.mg.co.za/article/2009-11-09-holomisa-calls-for-white-paper-on-labour-broking

3 South Africa

3.1 'External experts' on NPC: Mantashe

IOL, 9 November 2009

Minister in the Presidency Trevor Manuel will lead a panel of "external experts" on the national planning commission, ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe said on Monday.

"There will be a planning commission chaired by the minister in the presidency and consolidated by external experts," Mantashe told reporters in Johannesburg following a meeting of the party's
national executive committee.

Mantashe said the NEC had considered appointing Cabinet ministers to the commission, but did not do so out of concerns about "turf battles".

Manuel's position had been criticised by alliance partners Cosatu and the SA Communist Party. The ANC was expected to meet with its alliance partners at a summit this weekend. - Sapa

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=6&art_id=iol1257757125629N120

3.2 Stage is set for clash of two classes in Cosatu

Anthony Butler, Business Day, 9 November 2009

THE two-million strong Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) is really two workers' federations sheltering under a single umbrella. In one camp we find industrial, manufacturing and mineworkers unions. The main powers are the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the National Union of Metalworkers of SA, aligned with numerous substantial unions representing textile, chemicals, retailing and food workers.

The second camp is made up of public-sector trade unions representing prison and police officers, nurses, teachers, communications workers, and parastatal employees. The giants in this group are the South African Democratic Teachers' Union (Sadtu) and the National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu).

Four observations about these two broad groupings help to explain the recent politics of the tripartite alliance. First, the two types of union have different class bases. Teachers, health workers, police officers and government bureaucrats are, or aspire to be, members of the new middle class.

Second, deindustrialisation and a growing state mean public-sector unions will soon dominate the federation. This will bring a major culture shift. In the past, unions such as the NUM have produced the workers' political representatives: Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe, African National Congress (ANC) secretary-general Gwede Mantashe, and Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi are all products of the NUM machine. Industrial and mineworkers' unions, moreover, cultivated extended historical links with powerful factions of the South African Communist Party (SACP), relationships which their petty-bourgeois public-sector counterparts far less often enjoy.

Third, the two types of union have quite different organisational and political logics. Mineworkers and metalworkers survive in marginal industries facing intense international competition, in a country in the throes of deindustrialisation. Union leaders working in the private sector battle hard with employers but they know ideological posturing and unreasonable wage demands directly destroy members' jobs.

Public-sector workers are paid from the public purse. Their earnings are immune to swings in the global economy, and their job security and living standards are strongly influenced by relationships with national political leaders. The effects of their pay increases on society are mediated by the state's budgetary and tax systems, with the result that any unemployment and welfare destruction for which they are responsible is usually "invisible".

Fourth, and most important, industrial unions are locked in a struggle with capitalist employers producing goods for profit. Public-sector unions, by contrast, are involved in delivering the "social wage" of decent health, education, transport and municipal services. A fault line is developing in Cosatu around these public services. Mantashe told the South African Municipal Workers' Union last week that money-obsessed public-sector unions have delivered "shoddy services to communities". Last month, he told the Black Management Forum Sadtu should not blame apartheid for the work-shy attitude of many of its members. This follows ANC Gauteng provincial secretary David Makhura's attack on Nehawu for "failing to provide proper services to our people".

Public-sector union leaders claim system failures in provinces and municipalities are caused not by unionised state employees but by those who manage them. They focus on interests shared with industrial and mining union comrades in addressing class pathologies such as elite enrichment, corruption, mismanagement and abuse of labour broking.

When the tripartite alliance meets next weekend, public-sector unions may face a unique pincer movement. The industrial and mining unions and their SACP friends may join the ANC in insisting that public sector unions contribute more to achieving government objectives in schools, clinics and hospitals, policing and municipal services.

If they do not respond positively, conflict within the union movement may quickly escalate.

Butler teaches politics at Wits University.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200911090401.html

3.3 New law gives MPs and lobbyists more influence over government fund allocation

Brendan Boyle, Sunday Times, 8 November 2009

Cosatu ended an 11-year boycott of parliament's budget review process this week as MPs began to get to grips with the most significant increase in their powers since 1994.

For the first time in South Africa, the procession of analysts and lobbyists who attended public hearings on the minister of finance's revenue and expenditure package this week could hope actually to influence the allocation of taxpayers' rands.

The Money Bills Amendment Procedure and Related Matters Act, signed into law in July, gives MPs the power to influence both the fiscal envelope within which budgets are crafted and the actual allocation of funds to departments and to projects.

Unlike his predecessor, whose budget parliament could accept or reject, but not amend, Pravin Gordhan will next year have to defend the revenue and expenditure package he presents and could see it revised by the committees that must be set up in terms of the new law.

Prakashnee Govender, Cosatu's parliamentary liaison officer, took the labour federation's ideas to parliament's finance committee this week as the new dispensation began to creak into effect.

She argued that the 7.6% budget deficit forecast for this year should be hailed as a precedent and not just a peak. She said inflation targeting should go and the government should tax luxury imports to favour local manufacturing.

Since 1998, Cosatu had refused to participate in the budget hearings because parliament had not enacted the law required by the constitution to give itself the right to overrule the Treasury.

Govender said the federation would now align its skills and resources to take full advantage of the scope that has been provided for public participation.

Thaba Mufamadi, chairman of the finance committee, said MPs would have to feel their way with the new provisions.

"Implementation of legislation has never been an event. We are dealing with a very involved issue in the amendment of the budget," he said.

Parliament would next month advertise positions in the budget office, but it was unlikely, he said, that the office would be up and running in time to help legislators to assess the proposals in Gordhan's first budget in February.

He dismissed concerns voiced privately by some in the Treasury that the act could allow for populist spending by people with an inadequate grasp on the complexities of economic management.

"There is no programme that will emerge because of populist elements which is not a programme of the ANC," he said.

In a new book analysing the implications of the new act - Parliament, the Budget and Poverty in South Africa - the Institute for Democracy in SA (Idasa) said international experience showed that public participation generally improved budgeting and seldom pushed the process in irresponsible directions.

"Effective public participation gives rise to greater social ownership of the budget, which in turn improves scrutiny of spending and reduces corrosive conflict over public resources," Idasa said.

http://www.timeslive.co.za/business/article183883.ece

3.4 New era at Reserve Bank begins amid challenges

Marcus steps up as debate over inflation targeting rages

Ethel Hazelhurst, Business Report, 9 November 2009

A new era starts at South Africa's central bank today as Gill Marcus succeeds former governor Tito Mboweni.

A deputy governor between 1999 and 2004, she will chair her first meeting of the Reserve Bank's monetary policy committee on Monday and Tuesday of next week.

The bank's repo rate, which was hiked from 7 percent to 12 percent between June 2006 and June last year, has been cut by the same amount since December. Most economists expect no further rate cut but trade union federation Cosatu told a joint meeting of parliamentary finance committees earlier this month it wanted the repo rate cut to 3 percent.

Marcus is unlikely to comply, although it would not surprise economists if she cut by a further 50 basis points because South Africa is lagging the global recovery. However, with inflation still just above the Reserve Bank's 3 percent to 6 percent target range, and massive electricity tariff hikes in the pipeline, she has limited scope for further cuts.

Cosatu, which welcomed the appointment of Marcus when it was announced in July, has campaigned aggressively for a change to the inflation targeting regime.

Ahead of the medium-term budget policy statement last month, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan described the inflation-targeting framework as "an important element in macroeconomic co-ordination", which "has assisted in lowering inflation expectations, and in preventing inflation from undermining South Africa's competitiveness".

However, he also said: "We recognise that alongside inflation reduction and financial stability, we must seek faster development and employment creation."

The comment indicates some concessions to Cosatu's calls for the bank to have a dual mandate.

At present the bank's mandate is only to keep inflation within the target range, which is set by government. And the principle of a single mandate - to protect the value of the currency - is enshrined in the constitution, according to Dennis Dykes, Nedbank group chief economist. To change the mandate to include growth or employment creation would require a change to the constitution.

A criticism of a dual mandate is that the two are not reconcilable when inflation is high and growth is low - a condition described as stagflation. If the bank does not keep a tight rein on inflation South Africa could soon be facing stagflation.

Alternatively, the targeting framework could be retained but the target ceiling could be raised. However, targets are set to anchor inflation expectations and some economists believe adjusting them destroys the credibility of the exercise.

Marcus's appointment was favourably received by financial markets. As deputy governor she was responsible for policy relating to financial market regulation. As chair of Parliament's joint standing committee on finance, between 1994 and 1996 Marcus has experience of the cut and thrust of political interchange. She served as deputy finance minister between 1996 and 1999 and was chairwoman at Absa in the two years before her appointment to head the central bank.

http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=561&fArticleId=5236501

3.5 New player welcome

Editorial, Sunday World, 8 November 2009

News that the ANC, Cosatu and the SACP are still toying with the idea of launching their own newspaper should be received with elation rather than trepidation.

It could be an indicator that the ruling party is weaning itself off the unseemly idea of controlling the media through a media tribunal.

It is commendable that the party considers competing with large, independent media companies instead of nationalising or silencing publications.

The fundamental human right to speak your mind is a luxury that many in Africa, the former USSR, the Middle East, China, North Korea and other repressive societies can only dream of.

The ANC alliance is perfectly entitled to launch its own paper to counter what it sees as “the pro-business, pro-private enterprise, anti-communist, anti-democracy stance of newspapers belonging to the Big Four: Media24, Independent News & Media, Avusa Media and Caxton,” as Cosatu’s Patrick Craven wrote in Monday’s Business Day.

Coincidentally, on the same day that Craven was quoted denouncing the media for being anti- labour, Sowetan carried three stories on page four that made the anti-labour claim ring hollow.

The main story was about a boss who allegedly brutally assaulted a security guard. The SA Municipal Union criticised Mogale City in another.

The third was about a Cosatu protest demanding that Sun City fire a security company because of a racist insult against Nelson Mandela.

Likewise, the anti-communist tag isn’t a universal truth. It wears thin in light of the high media profile the SACP and Young Communist League enjoy, given their size.

Having said that, there is merit in the argument that the humanist message of communism is not getting fair treatment in Western-style democracies.

Perhaps people will turn to the planned newspaper to learn about an alternative system to the rabid capitalism that has brought the world economy to its knees.

Such a newspaper would undoubtedly offer a refreshing perspective on important initiatives such as National Health Insurance, compared with the self-serving scaremongering by the private health sector against the plan to improve access to health care.

It would be interesting to see how the proposed paper works in reality. Imagine the tensions in the newsroom over whether to publish Kader Asmal’s blistering attack on the ANC leaders and the MK Veterans Association’s retort that he should go to the nearest cemetery and die.

What will the newspaper’s approach be to ads that mislead workers into buying useless miracle cures ? Will the editor be free to publish Numsa’s sabre-rattling about nationalising Tokyo Sexwale’s wealth?

They must still do a feasibility study and respect the outcome. It will make a difference to how long the newspaper lasts and, with it, the excitement and creative tension of increased competition.

http://www.sundayworld.co.za/Home/Article.aspx?id=1085980

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