COSATU Media Monitor, 06 May 2013

[Norman Mampane]

COSATU Media Monitor 

Monday, 06 May 2013

 

COSATU National Collective Bargaining, Organizing and Campaigns Conference Special Declaration

 

http://www.cosatu.org.za/show.php?ID=7062

 

COSATU has served a Section77 Notice at Nedlac on the 11^th December 2012

http://www.cosatu.org.za/show.php?ID=6785

 

COSATU E-toll Campaign goes ahead in 2013.

http://www.cosatu.org.za/show.php?ID=6793

 

Stop Commodification of public goods!

 

The articles in the Media Monitor do not represent the views of COSATU. They are selected because we believe they deal with topics of interest to our readers, who will then be informed on how the media is reporting and commenting on these topics. It will enable them, if necessary, to respond to inaccurate, misleading or biased reports or comment.

If we have excluded other articles which readers wished could have been picked, this was not intentional but because of tight time-frames. If you have seen article worth to be shared email it.

 

COSATU is on Twitter and also has a Facebook Page!

 

To participate and follow the Federation debates hashtag on Twitter #cosatu and/or search for Cosatu Today after logging.

 

 

Contents

 

Workers’ Parliament

Ø  Chamza of the week

Ø  Pikitup workers strike

Ø  Municipality obtains interdict against striking Pikitup workers

Ø  Samwu to strike illegally: Pikitup

Ø  Teachers are role models of moral excellence: Motlanthe

Ø  NUM branches to discuss salary demands

Ø  South Africa braces for 'strike season'

Ø  Gupta saga: Union says lower level employees used as scapegoats

Ø  Tough business conditions 'no excuse' for lower pay

Ø  Mpumalanga tops mine safety - chamber

Ø  Mine deaths fall, but safety target missed

Ø  Tshwane Metro Cops face disciplinary action

Ø  Postal union falling apart

Ø  Call for Sadtu to apologise for underwear stunt

Ø  Commuters brace themselves for another week of bus strikes

Ø  OPINION-The world needs midwives, now more than ever

Ø  Striking metro police must return to work

Ø  Court postpones affirmative action case

Ø  ‘Wash first, blacks’

Ø  DA, ANC bury pitchforks to fix farm crisis

Ø  Rising salary deductions, tariffs ‘negate benefit of pay increases’

 

COSATU

Ø  CITY PRESS SURVEY RESULTS

Ø Vavi: Secure future for youth is crucial

Ø OPINION-Cosatu’s power in alliance will diminish over time

Ø Labour rivalry unhealthy

Ø Vavi interview: Cartoons, hyenas and graft

Ø  Guptagate turning SA into banana republic - Vavi

Ø  GUPTA: Cops bust 9!

Ø  Vavi: Economy needs radical restructuring

Ø  Massive problems in SA economy – Vavi

Ø  Vavi foe claims anti-ANC conspiracy

 

South Africa

Ø  Rand holds on to three-week high

Ø  Arrested SABC staff released in DRC: report

Ø  More heat on Pule as police plan probe

Ø  SA varsities ‘should create workplace-based learning opportunities’

Ø  McBride 'heavily indebted' and must find a job

Ø  FIVE MINUTES: South Africa

 

Alliance

Ø  ANC won’t settle for less than two thirds majority: Zuma

Ø  Thousands gather Moses Kotane Volunteer Brigades launch

Ø  MKVA backs McBride

 

International

Ø  Bangladesh building collapse death toll nears 600: army

Ø  Recession-hit Portugal announces more austerity measures

Ø  Rights trio condemns harassment of media in South Sudan

Ø  Walmart's dazzle fizzles for Massmart investors

 

Comment

 

Ø  COSATU E-toll Campaign goes ahead in 2013

Ø  COSATU Section77 Notice served at Nedlac on the 11th December 2012

Ø  India just doesn't get it

__________________________________________________________

1.          Workers’ Parliament   

Chamza of the week

Sunday World, 05 May 2013

 

KUDOS to the workers who stood up to Sun City management and the Gupta family about the services rendered to their wedding guests this week.

 

The workers claim the Gupta contingent demanded preferential treatment during their stay at the North West resort.

 

The charmza workers allege that guests did not want to be served by black staff at the resort and demanded that their services be rendered by white personnel.

Now, after receiving complaints from workers about the racist requirements of wedding guests, Cosatu has called on Sun City management not to allow Guptas to practice racism at the resort.

 

Bravo to the workers who say NO to racism!

__________

Pikitup workers strike

Sapa, Fin24, 06 May 2013

 

Johannesburg - Workers at waste management company Pikitup embarked on a strike and demonstrated outside the company's head office on Monday morning, the company said.

"There are demonstrations outside the head office building. It is a bit chaotic... only a fraction of them turned up for work," said spokesperson Desiree Ntshingila.

Pikitup obtained a court interdict to stop the strike, which it considers illegal, at the weekend.

Ntshingila said a meeting with the Municipal Workers' Union (Samwu) would be scheduled for later on Monday.

In a statement on Sunday, Pikitup said it would not tolerate an unprotected strike.

Managing director Amanda Nair said workers' grievances included the implementation of biometric access control, breathalyser tests for drivers, and transport for workers.

She said the current transport system for workers was not sustainable and a new solution was needed.

"Previously, Pikitup employees requiring transportation were picked up and dropped off at central points on a daily basis using Pikitup trucks."

"We are now trying to implement contingency plans to ensure that services are not disrupted."

Samwu shopsteward Phumlile Shange said the interdict had been communicated to the union, but that the message had not filtered through to members because it had been issued at the weekend.

Apart from being unhappy about transport, the workers were unhappy that management had stopped their half-work day once a month and changed it to a full work day, said Shange.

"The union is set to meet with management to resolve these issues."

_____________

Municipality obtains interdict against striking Pikitup workers

SABC News, 06 May 2013

The City of Johannesburg has obtained an interdict against Pikitup workers who were to embark on a strike from Monday. 

Reports say the interdict was obtained in the South Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg last night. Samwu workers have been planning to strike over a new biometric staff monitoring system and breathalyzer tests for drivers, among other things. 

Pikitup MD Amanda Nair says it's unfortunate that employees have resorted to the unprotected strike. She has advised residents and business owners in all areas of Johannesburg not to take out their bins until further notice. 

Motorists have also been advised to avoid the areas around the Nelson Mandela bridge and De Korte Street in Braamfontein. 

___________

Samwu to strike illegally: Pikitup

Sapa, Times Live, 05 May 2013

 

Pikitup workers aligned with Samwu are set to embark on an illegal strike, the City of Johannesburg's waste management entity said on Sunday.

"It is unfortunate that our employees have resorted to an unprotected strike in relation to their grievances," Pikitup managing director Amanda Nair said in a statement.

Nair said the illegal strike was expected to begin on Monday.

Comment from the SA Municipal Workers Union was not immediately available.

"We will not tolerate such disregard for the law and will take swift legal action in dealing with all involved."

She said workers' grievances included implementation of biometric access control, breathalyser tests for drivers, and transport for workers. Nair said the digital access system would make operations more efficient.

The current transport system for workers was not sustainable and a new solution was needed.

"Previously Pikitup employees requiring transportation were picked up and dropped off at central points on a daily basis using Pikitup trucks."

Residents and business owners in all areas of Johannesburg were told not to bring out their bins until further notice.

"It is unclear as to how long the workers will be on strike for but management is working to resolve the matter with the Samwu union."

Motorists were advised to avoid the areas around the Nelson Mandela bridge and De Korte Street in Braamfontein.

___________

Teachers are role models of moral excellence: Motlanthe

Sapa , Times Live, 05 May 2013

 

Teachers are viewed by society as models of moral excellence and transmitters of culture, Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe said on Saturday.

"Society looks to educators as models of moral excellence and the transmitters of culture, value system and norms. Teachers are charged to socialise learners into matured and responsible adults who will in turn take up their societal places in the future," Motlante said in a speech prepared for delivery in Polokwane.

Motlanthe was speaking at the opening of the SA Democratic Teachers' Union's (Sadtu) Curtis Nkondo Professional Development Institute in Polokwane.

He said teachers were expected to lead by example.

"Against this background, educators have the moral, professional, intellectual and historical duty to avoid acts of behaviour inconsistent with these expectations of their profession."

Motlanthe said Sadtu, more than any other organisation, carried more responsibility to lead the way towards a morally grounded nation.

"Nothing could justify sexist, public insults levelled at the minister of basic education [Angie Motshekga] as happened and one can only hope that this act amounted to a fleeting lapse of moral judgement," he said.

Motlanthe was referring to an incident in which Sadtu members were seen holding panties with the words "puluma ya Angie" during a protest.

"Teachers must now more than ever commit themselves to ensuring that we build an education and training system that is steeped in the highest quality standards, producing capable cohorts of future leaders who will help eradicate the challenges we are confronted with."

The institute was expected to set Sadtu on a path towards improving skills and training development of its members.

Nkondo was a teacher who dedicated a large part of his life to the liberation struggle during the apartheid era.

___________

NUM branches to discuss salary demands

SABC  News, 06 May 2013

The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) says it is meeting on Monday with all its branches to consolidate their salary demands for the gold and coal sectors.

This as South African mines express concern about the NUM's indication that workers will demand a double digit wage increase this year. The mining industry is still reeling from months of violent strikes where workers demanded salary hikes of between R12 500 and R16 000.

NUM spokesperson, Lesiba Seshoka says the union has taken a decision that workers should receive a double-digit increase. Seshoka says they will meet with the Chamber of Mines next week to present their demands.

Gold producer, Harmony Gold is the latest to post a third-quarter loss caused by production shortfalls following labour unrest last year. Harmony Gold says it fell into the red following the temporary closure of its Kusasalethu mine because of union rivalry and violence.

Analysts say South Africa's gold, platinum and coal producers have been agreeing to above-inflation wage increases for years, but steeply rising power and other costs mean another round of big wage hikes would push many into the red. 

__________

South Africa braces for 'strike season'

Sapa-AFP , Times Live, 05 May 2013

 

South Africa is girding itself for a fresh round of labour unrest as collective wage negotiations get underway, with the country facing a tough challenge to avoid a repeat of last year's deadly strikes.

This month will see a series of sectoral wage contracts come up for discussion, kicking off South Africa's "strike season" which often sees both the employed and the jobless take to the streets.

With the country experiencing tough economic times and unions emboldened by hefty wage increases granted last year to end strikes, analysts predict difficult months ahead.

"It's going to be very tough, perhaps one of the very toughest collective bargaining (rounds), since the attainment of democracy," said Crispen Chinguno a sociology fellow at the University of Witwatersrand who is exploring the dynamics of strike violence.

The shooting deaths of 34 striking platinum miners by police in one day last August has left simmering anger, against the backdrop of employer-labour relations that are the worst in the world according to World Economic Forum.

Charles Laurie, an Africa analyst with UK-based Maplecroft said workers' expectations are sky-high.

"The perception among workers that wildcat strikes are an effective and legitimate means of seeking wage concessions will increase their prevalence and intensity," he said.

The largest private sector union, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) has warned it will demand double-digit wage increases when it submits its demands to the Chamber of Mines.

Meanwhile mine owners have warned that job losses are in the pipeline. One firm alone, Anglo American, is expected to make an announcement on its plans to slash as many as 14,000 jobs next week.

In a sign of how deep divisions run, the 310,000-member NUM said tough business conditions "should not be used as an excuse or bargaining chip to award workers lower pay or threaten them with dismissals."

Even with inflation at 5.9 percent, NUM general secretary Frans Baleni defended the idea of double digit increases as aimed at correcting "apartheid wages, high levels of inequality and general economic the state of workers."

Bad-blood between unions and business owners has been augmented by the emergency of newer more militant unions, which have challenged the primacy of groups that are seen as being in bed with business.

A recent report by the Daily Maverick website revealed that some union officials even had their homes paid for by mine bosses.

"Inter-union rivalries and the mushrooming of more militant unions, suggest that the extractive and transport industries may see further unrest," Laurie warned.

While the mining sector remains tense after last year's violence, the public sector is also seen as a potential flashpoint.

"I think the biggest risk for strikes this year comes from the public sector," said Adcorp labour economist, Loane Sharp.

More than 78 percent of public sector workers are unionised compared to 24 percent in the private sector, according to Adcorp's figures.

Many unionised workers are demanding substantial pay hikes despite the government's fiscal troubles.

Teachers last week staged a one day protest, handing a litany of demands to President Jacob Zuma's office -- and warning of a full-blown strike and disruptions to mid-year examinations unless their demands are met within weeks.

Public commuter bus drivers are also striking to demand higher wages.

In the last government budget Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said the government payroll would increase by less than three percent overall, half the rate of inflation.

In August, the government and public sector unions sealed a three-year salary settlement that would peg salaries to inflation plus one percent.

Unions are expected to aggressively escalate wage demands to look for between eight and nine percent increases, especially for municipal workers.

Overall, the strike season this year could dent national output by between 0.2 to 0.3 percent, but the indirect impact might be much bigger.

"It reduces confidence of local business planning to expand and it reduces confidence of foreign investors to invest," said Sharp.

__________

Gupta saga: Union says lower level employees used as scapegoats

Sapa, M&G, 04 May 2013

 

·          

An independent commission of inquiry must be established to investigate the Gupta jet saga, says the SA National Defence Union (Sandu).

"Sandu believes that the only way to deal wih this matter is an independent commission of inquiry….without fear, favour or prejudice," said the union's national secretary Pikkie Greeff in a statement on Saturday.

He said the commission should include judicial, aviation and military security experts.

Sandu said the objectivity of investigations so far was questionable, as one suspended officer did not have executive or authorisation powers.

"The sole duties of the officer in question has absolutely nothing to do with authorisation of any form of air traffic movement whatsoever…," said Greef.

"Her main function consists at the base of facilitating the directing of embarking and disembarking of passengers and crew to the designated areas within the base."

Greef said the officer did this under the orders of higher command structures.

"She has no executive powers of any nature," he said.

Scapegoats
"Clearly the so called investigations currently underway are sloppy and intent on identifying lower level employees as scapegoats for an embarrassing fiasco that could only have been orchestrated and arranged at very senior levels in government."

Greef added that the officer had learnt of her suspension through the media and was not formally informed.

The civilian jet chartered by the wealthy and politically-connected Gupta family landed at the Waterkloof Air Force Base – a national key point – on Tuesday.

It was carrying guests to the wedding of Vega Gupta, 23, to Indian-born Aaskash Jahajgarhia at Sun City, North West. The Gupta's own The New Age newspaper and Sahara Computers. The jet was moved off the base on Thursday afternoon, amid widespread criticism.

Justice Minister Jeff Radebe announced in a televised broadcast on Friday that five high ranking officials and military personnel had been suspended over the unauthorised landing.

The suspended officials were: Chief of State Protocol: Ambassador Bruce Koloane, Officer Commanding Air Force Command post: Brig-Gen L Lombard, Officer Commanding Air Force Base: Brig-Gen TS Madumane; Movement Control Officer: Lt-Col C Anderson and SA Police Service Operational Response Services Gauteng Province: Maj-Gen Phumza Gela. – Sapa  

____________

Tough business conditions 'no excuse' for lower pay

Susan Njanji, M&G, 05 May 2013

·          

·          

South Africa is girding itself for a fresh round of labour unrest as collective wage negotiations get under way.

This month will see a series of sectoral wage contracts come up for discussion, kicking off South Africa's "strike season".

With the country experiencing tough economic times and unions emboldened by hefty wage increases granted last year to end strikes, analysts predict difficult months ahead.

"It's going to be very tough, perhaps one of the very toughest collective bargaining [rounds], since the attainment of democracy," said Crispen Chinguno, a sociology fellow at the University of Witwatersrand, who is exploring the dynamics of strike violence.

The shooting deaths of 34 striking platinum miners at Marikana by police in one day last August has left simmering anger, against the backdrop of employer-labour relations that are the worst in the world, according to World Economic Forum.

Charles Laurie, an Africa analyst with UK-based Maplecroft, said workers' expectations are sky-high.

"The perception among workers that wildcat strikes are an effective and legitimate means of seeking wage concessions will increase their prevalence and intensity," he said.

The largest private sector union, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) has warned it will demand double-digit wage increases when it submits its demands to the Chamber of Mines.

Meanwhile, mine owners have warned that job losses are in the pipeline. Anglo American is expected to make an announcement next week on its plans to slash as many as 14 000 jobs.

In a sign of how deep divisions run, the 310 000-member NUM said tough business conditions "should not be used as an excuse or bargaining chip to award workers lower pay or threaten them with dismissals".

Even with inflation at 5.9%, NUM general secretary Frans Baleni defended the idea of double digit increases as aimed at correcting "apartheid wages, high levels of inequality and the general economic state of workers".

Bad-blood between unions and business owners has been augmented by the emergence of newer more militant unions, which have challenged the primacy of groups seen as being in bed with business.

A recent report by the Daily Maverick revealed that some union officials even had their homes paid for by mine bosses.

"Inter-union rivalries and the mushrooming of more militant unions suggest that the extractive and transport industries may see further unrest," Laurie warned.

Public sector flashpoint

While the mining sector remains tense after last year's violence, the public sector is also seen as a potential flashpoint.

"I think the biggest risk for strikes this year comes from the public sector," said Adcorp labour economist Loane Sharp.

More than 78% of public sector workers are unionised compared to 24% in the private sector, according to Adcorp's figures.

Many unionised workers are demanding substantial pay hikes despite the government's fiscal troubles.

Teachers last week staged a one day protest, handing a litany of demands to President Jacob Zuma's office—and warning of a full-blown strike and disruptions to mid-year examinations unless their demands are met within weeks.

Public commuter bus drivers are also striking to demand higher wages.

In the last government budget Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said the government payroll would increase by less than 3% overall, half the rate of inflation.

In August, the government and public sector unions sealed a three-year salary settlement that would peg salaries to inflation plus 1%.

Unions are expected to aggressively escalate wage demands to look for between 8% and 9% increases, especially for municipal workers.

Overall, the strike season this year could dent national output by between 0.2 to 0.3%, but the indirect impact might be much bigger.

"It reduces confidence of local business planning to expand and it reduces confidence of foreign investors to invest," said Sharp. – AFP

____________

Mpumalanga tops mine safety - chamber

Dale Hes, Fin24, 05 May 2013

 

Mbombela - Mpumalanga’s coal mining sector has safety standards comparable to the safest mining countries in the world, according to the Chamber of Mines.

The Chamber's head of safety and sustainable development, Sieste van der Woude, told African Eye News Service that the province's safety standards were as good as those in the United States.

“The Chief Inspector of Mines has indicated that coal mining safety in Mpumalanga has reached levels comparable to the United States. This is a remarkable achievement,” said Van der Woude.

She said that total mining deaths in South Africa in 2012 numbered 110, a 9% decrease from 128 deaths in 2011.

“Of the total fatalities for 2012, 18 occurred in coal mines. The United States had 19 fatalities in coal mines for the same period,” he stated.

Van der Woude said that thus far this year 33 fatalities were recorded in South, dropping from 39 recorded at the same period last year.

“Through a number of initiatives, we have managed to consistently bring fatalities down year on year,” he said.

In 2003, the Mine Health and Safety Tripartite Leadership was formed between labour unions, government and mining companies.

The alliance agreed on a “zero harm” initiative with the goal of reducing fatalities.

“We set out to achieve this objective by the year 2013. We are not quite there as a whole, but Mpumalanga province has now reached this target,” Van der Woude said.

According to statistics released by the department of mineral resources, 270 mining accident fatalities were recorded nationally for 2003, more than double last year’s toll.

“Various initiatives undertaken by the tripartite collaboration have contributed to this decrease.

“The Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Representative Development Project was established in 2008 to train 40 000 health and safety representatives,  while an action plan was developed to strengthen the mining safety culture, leadership and ownership," said Van der Woude.

The OHS project was given a budget of R54m per year for five years for this purpose, while a Mine Inspector Training Project was also established to identify and implement training courses for mine inspectors.

Van der Woude said that the main cause of fatalities had shifted from falls or ground accidents to transport related deaths.

“Mining safety underground, which has traditionally been the biggest contributor to deaths, has improved substantially, and now the industry needs to focus on preventing transport related deaths.
 
 - African Eye News Service

__________

Mine deaths fall, but safety target missed

Lucky Biyase, BD Live, 05 May 2013

DANGEROUS GROUND: The mining industry has not hit its long-term zero-injury target for 2013. Picture: …

MINE safety statistics, expected to be released by Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu later this month, will show that, despite a marked improvement in combating mine fatalities, South Africa has failed to reach the targets it set itself a decade ago.

In 2003 the industry drew up a roadmap to achieve zero fatalities and injuries by 2013. This might sound unrealistic, but competitors in developed countries like the US, Australia and Canada get close to it.

There have been 29 fatalities so far this year. This is a 66% improvement on the 270 deaths of 2003, when the plan was first mooted, but still far short of the target.

The plans in 2003 included setting up the Mine Occupational Safety and Health team, focusing on the biggest risk areas — such as falls of ground, dust, noise and transportation. It also included setting up tripartite bodies including government, mining companies and labour to discuss ways to improve safety.

Leigh McMaster, head of health and safety at trade union Solidarity, said there has been improvement in ground support, leadership and entry examinations.

But one of the problems preventing the industry from reaching the zero-fatality target is the lack of enforcement by the Mine Health and Safety Inspectorate.

Ms McMaster said that while the inspectorate has improved there have been cases where it has issued section 54 instructions without justification.

“Many of these examples could possibly be attributed to a lack of standards across the regions of the inspectorate, incompetence in some cases and a lack of capacity. It has, however, played a pivotal role in accelerating safety improvement in the industry,” he said.

Mining is the only industry in which safety is policed by a dedicated inspectorate. In other sectors, the job is done by the Department of Labour, which often fails to enforce regulations.

Ms McMaster emphasised that mining is the only industry in South Africa that has embraced safety as the “primary value and imperative” for sustainable business.

It is also the only industry that has structures and processes to accelerate safety transformation, he said.

Harmony Gold safety executive Alwyn Pretorius said: “Harmony has embarked on a culture alignment process with safety as our main priority.”

Mr Pretorius said that in the last 15 months Harmony has not had a fall of ground fatality in South Africa.

Lonmin executive vice-president Mark Munroe said there has been a dramatic improvement in collaboration between unions and mining companies over the past five years.

A key to success has been changing a culture of regarding some fatalities as acceptable.

Ms McMaster said “the culture transformation framework for the mining industry is expected to be the catalyst for change over the next couple of years”.

“The forum addresses critical areas such as leadership, risk management and investigations, incentives, the implementation of leading practice and the elimination of discrimination,” he said.

• This article was first published in Sunday Times: Business Times

__________

Tshwane Metro Cops face disciplinary action

Seabelo Modise, EWN, 05 May 2013

PRETORIA – Tshwane Metro Police said disciplinary action would be taken against officers who embarked on an illegal strike.

At least one hundred metro policemen gathered outside their head office in the Pretoria CBD on Friday. 

They were angry about a new shift schedule that had been put in place for officers to cover morning and afternoon rush-hour traffic. 

The Johannesburg Labour Court granted the Tshwane Metro Police Department an order prohibiting its workers from going on the illegal strike. 

Police management had argued in their papers that the strike was illegal as there was no stipulated 48-hour notice served on the municipality of the intention to embark on a strike. 

“The strike was also illegal because metro police work is classified as an essential service,” said Tshwane Metro Police spokesman Console Tleane. 

"The court also ruled that the parties must return on the 8 May 2013, on which date the unions will be given an opportunity to provide arguments on why the interim order should not be made final.”

Meanwhile, Tshwane metro police chief Steven Ngobeni issued an ultimatum to all members on strike to return to work by Monday, 6 May.

____________

Postal union falling apart

Dewald van Rensburg, City Press, Fin24, 05 May 2013

 

 

Johannesburg - An official circular claims Sapwu structures on the ground barely exist, City Pressreported on Sunday.

The breakaway SA Postal Workers’ Union (Sapwu) which represents about a third of postal workers, is in disarray.

Among the cracks in the union is a purge of regional leaders, a court case challenging national leadership and questions about millions of rands being used to repay mysterious loans from founders, which other officials were never told about.

After a three-year battle with the SA Post Office (Sapo) and a trade union federation Cosatu affiliate, the Communication Workers’ Union, Sapwu finally sealed a new recognition deal in February.

Internal correspondence and letters from a lawyer show that regional leaders addressed a lawyer’s letter to Sapo chief executive Chris Hlekane and head of human resources Maphutha Diaz demanding that all payments of Sapwu members’ fees be put in a suspense account. 

They also asked Sapo to stop all correspondence with the five national leaders and instead talk to the six regional heads.

This was done the same day Sapwu general secretary David Mangena sent out a letter suspending 14 regional heads from the union. 

The battle has ended up in the labour court, where regional offices want to boot out the national office bearers.

Malandela Radebe, Sapwu’s Wits-region treasurer, filed the affidavit and alleges that the national office bearers “appear to have installed themselves as (national executive committee) members for life”.

The crux is that the union initially appointed an interim leadership with a three-year term in 2009, but still there is no national congress or election. 

An official circular from Mangena claims the union cannot hold a congress because its structures on the ground barely exist – raising questions about Sapwu’s ability to function at all.

Of the six regional divisions of the union, three “have no branches” or are “comprised of only two and three comrades”, said Mangena.

The leadership battle flared up during the height of the unprotected postal strike this year, which ended with the dismissal of 588 postal workers, while the union was apparently unable to intervene.

In February, Sapwu’s national office bearers allegedly resolved to recoup R3.6m they had lent to the union, by way of levies on members.

A year earlier, the loans had totalled R2m, indicating that the founding members, all of them postal employees, have been continuously pouring money into the union. 

But Radebe’s affidavit reads: “I do not know if these expenses are genuine and I submit that it is irregular.”

The veracity of the financial statements is questionable, as the auditors note “all the accounting records and source documents” of Sapwu were stolen in a business burglary in December 2011.

Sapwu levies a R60 monthly fee on its more than 3?000 members.

 - Dewald van Rensburg, City Press

____________

Call for Sadtu to apologise for underwear stunt

eNCA,4 May 2013

Pretoria - The Commission for Gender Equality has finally responded to an open letter by Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga, after her detractors tried to humiliate her.
The Commission has called on Sadtu to formally apologise for disgracing Motshekga.

"It's very serious. It says we objectify women as South Africans. We do not respect woman. We dehumanize woman in a public space because we cannot get what we want," said Javu Baloyi of the Commission for Gender Equality

Sadtu is calling for the minister’s resignation because it says it’s been left out of collective bargaining.

Women's rights groups say members of the teachers’ union are going the wrong way about their demands.-eNCA

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Commuters brace themselves for another week of bus strikes

SABC News, 05 May 2013

Strike-weary commuters in Cape Town are bracing themselves for another week of travelling inconvenience as the nationwide bus strike enters its third week. 

 

On Friday, transport union Satawu, in the Western Cape said there would be no end to the strike until their pay demand is met.  

They've reverted back to their original demand of 18%, after employers refused a 13% increase. 

 

More than 200 000 commuters in the Cape Metro are being affected by the strike. Bishop Lavis resident, Hazel Schuter has to travel to Sea Point every day. She says she now has to fork out more than three times her normal transport costs. 

 

"Where I normally take my 6am bus… I must now leave here [between] 4.30am - 4.45am … In the evening I leave work at 5pm then I go to the top deck of that station. The queues are so long, I get home at about 8pm every night. I mean, it's ridiculous. It’s terrible, it’s unbelievable. We actually can't handle it anymore."

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OPINION-The world needs midwives, now more than ever

Dr Julitta Onabanjo, Dr Connie Osborne, Elgonda Bekker, M&G, 05 May 2013

·          

·          

Comment: May 5 is International Midwife Day: a day to acknowledge the vital impact midwives have on maternal health in South Africa.

The onset of labour marks the end of pregnancy and heralds what for many women living in rural areas is a treacherous and anxious filled time. While to the global community South Africa bears the status of a middle income country, it is still dealing with deep inequalities. While urban living guarantees women access to hospitals with good maternity wards, rural areas can sometimes paint a considerably different picture. 

Delivering a child in South Africa can vary, depending on where you are geographically located. South Africa, like a number of countries in Africa, is facing a shortage of highly skilled healthcare professionals. Midwives are no exception. As a result, the continent continues to tragically lose its mothers during pregnancy and at child birth. 

Over the past two decades South Africa has put a lot of effort towards improving the welfare of mothers and their children by providing free primary healthcare services for pregnant women and children under the age of six.  

On this International Day of Midwives – the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF) and Society of Midwives of South Africa (Somsa) celebrate the work of midwives in contributing to the miracle of birth – and for the myriad other things they do every day to contribute to the wellbeing of mothers and children around the world. The tireless work of midwives is also a crucial step towards achieving millennium development goal four, (reducing child mortality) and goal 5 (improving maternal health including targets to ensure a reduction in maternal deaths and universal access to reproductive health by 2015 and beyond).

South Africa should also join in marking this International Day of Midwives, especially having managed to drastically reduce the transmission of HIV from mother to child. Midwives have played a significant role in this initiative and it is through their tireless efforts that these gains have been made. 

Acknowledgement and commendation should be given to the health minister for the priority he has given to women and children's health and to the health department for its efforts to improve maternal and child health including through the establishment of important task teams that have added significant knowledge and expertise to addressing the health challenge – expert teams such as the national committee on confidential inquiries into maternal deaths, the committee on morbidity and mortality in children, the national perinatal mortality committee and the committee tasked with the development of the nursing compact.

Midwives needed in rural areas
But despite these huge investments from government, there are still several notable results which can be drawn from the health data advisory and coordination committee (HDACC) report, released by the ministry of health in 2012. According to the report, South Africa's maternal mortality ratio stands at 310 per 100 000 live births. The report further states that the neonatal mortality ratio stood at 14 per 1 000 live births. While for South Africa the situation is compounded by high HIV infection rates among pregnant women, this data also points towards the need to strengthen the quality of midwifery care particularly within the rural areas.  

The question then needs to be asked, how can South Africa improve the health of its women and young people and reduce maternal mortality and morbidity in line with national and global priorities? Novel and innovative approaches are needed, some requiring more effort than others. The Eastern Cape and a few other provinces, have established maternity waiting homes near hospitals in rural areas. These waiting homes allow pregnant women who live in remote areas and who are considered high risk cases during pregnancy and delivery to come closer to hospital services, considering that facilities in their communities that may be able to manage pregnancy or delivery complications may be many kilometers away.

UNFPA and Somsa concur that the provision of contraceptive services plays an important factor in improving maternal health, stating that midwives play a vital role in reducing the mortality rate of children and increasing access to universal access to reproductive health care services.  About 222–million women globally want to delay or avoid pregnancies but lack the modern means to do so. It is estimated that 80% of unintended pregnancies in developing countries occur to women who have an unmet need for contraception. South Africa has recently revised its contraceptive and fertility planning policy and is presently rolling out important refresher training programmes for health workers on the revised policy. 

During the 29th ICM triennial congress held in June 2011 in South Africa, midwives adopted the Global Standards in Midwifery Education, the Global Standards in Midwifery Regulation as well as the member association competency assessment tool. A model midwifery curriculum has also been developed. These documents have all been designed to assist countries to either adopt or use in their own settings. Amref in its SU4AM campaign has set the goal of training 15 000 midwives by 2015 in sub– Saharan African countries. Currently 2 850 midwives are in training with support from the organisation in various African countries.

Continentally, the United Nations continues to support concerted action towards improving maternal and newborn health and survival through the implementation of the Campaign for Accelerated Reduction of Maternal Mortality in Africa. This initiative, spearheaded by the African Union, aspires towards the goal that no woman should die while giving birth. 

On this year's International Day of Midwives UNFPA, Amref and Somsa reaffirm continued support and partnership with government and various stakeholders in ensuring that through the support for professional competent midwives, no woman should die while giving birth.

This is a joint opinion piece by the UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund), Amref (African Medical and Research Foundation) and the Society of Midwives of South Africa (Somsa).

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Striking metro police must return to work

Sapa, Fin24, 03 May 2013

 

Johannesburg - The Johannesburg Labour Court has granted the Tshwane Metropolitan Police Department an order prohibiting its workers from going on an illegal strike, the municipality said on Friday.

Spokesperson for the Tshwane metro police Console Tleame said the interdict was against the SA Municipal Workers Union (Samwu), the Independent Municipal and Allied Trade Union (Imatu), and the members of the Tshwane metro police who had been on an unprotected strike since the beginning of the month. 

The officers embarked on an unprotected strike complaining about a new shift system which came into effect on May 1. 

Acting Judge Connie Prinsloo ruled that the strike by the members must be interdicted. 

Tshwane metro police management had argued in their papers that the strike was illegal as there was no stipulated 48-hour notice served on the municipality of the intention to embark on a strike. 

"The strike was also illegal because metro police work is classified as an essential service," said Tleame.

The court order was issued with immediate effect.

"The court also ruled that the parties must return on the May 8 2013, on which date the unions will be given an opportunity to provide arguments on why the interim order should not be made final," Tleame said.

Meanwhile, Tshwane metro police chief Steven Ngobeni issued an ultimatum to all members on strike to return to work by Monday May 6.

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Court postpones affirmative action case

 Sapa, Fin24, 03 May 2013

 

Johannesburg - An affirmative action case by union Solidarity against the Western Cape correctional services department was postponed in the Labour Court in Cape Town, the union said on Friday.

"The case was postponed today [Friday] on condition that the posts applied for by the applicants and those that have not been filled, remain vacant. The trial will resume on 29 July until 9 August," the union said in a statement.

Solidarity said it brought the matter to court on behalf of the department's staff members - Linda-Jean Fortuin, Christopher February, Andre Jonkers, Geo-nita Baartman, Pieter Davids, Derick Wehr, Jan Kotze, Desiree Merkeur, Deidre Jordaan and Teresa Abrahams.

"In each case, the persons concerned were the best candidates for positions they had applied for, and their skin colour was the only reason they have not been appointed," the union said.

"Solidarity maintains that the department's blatant policy of absolute racial representation is unfair, irrational and unlawful."

In all the cases, the department argued that the national demographics had to be used as the criterion, said Solidarity.

It said coloured employees were overlooked because of the department's affirmative action policy.

Fortuin, a coloured woman with 26 years of service at the department, was one of the employees who were allegedly dealt a blow by the policy.

"She applied for three posts, but as a result of affirmative action, was passed over for all three. She was later appointed to one of the posts, that of Area Co-ordinator at Pollsmoor, with effect from 1 June 2012."

February, a coloured employee with 16 years of service, applied for the post of senior state accountant and was recommended as the best candidate.

"However, the director for equitable employment argued that the recommendation was not in line with the affirmative action plan, and the second best candidate, a black female, was recommended for the position. She, however, had already accepted another position, and the post was re-advertised."

Teboho Mokoena, deputy commissioner of human resources at the department, said his department followed the requirements of the Employment Equity Act.

"In terms of senior management posts of director and chief director levels in the Western Cape, there are five coloured males, two coloured females, five African males, five African females and one white male - there are no white females or Indian males or females in senior management," said Mokoena.

"Coloureds therefore comprise more than one third, or 38.89%, of senior managers."

Mokoena said Minister Sibusiso Ndebele convened a ministerial consultative forum in February, designated to resolve any problems that may exist between the department and recognised trade unions.

"The department and the unions have structures in place to address issues related to the employment equity plan."

"Solidarity does not serve on these structures, due to the fact that it is not recognised within the department, as per rules of the collective bargaining council."

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‘Wash first, blacks’

Athandiwe Saba and Adriaan Basson @City_Press #Guptagate5 May 2013

The newlyweds, Aakash Jahajgarhia (left) and Vega Gupta, were reportedly ‘mistreated’ by officials before they left SA

Ugly race rows at Gupta wedding

White bodyguards hired by the Gupta family to protect their wedding guests blocked black employees from entering hotel rooms – unless they washed themselves first.

And Sun City staff members claim that waiters trying to deliver trays to guests’ rooms were told the bodyguards would supply them with toothpaste, toothbrushes and towels to clean themselves if they wanted to proceed.

But the well-connected family last night distanced themselves from these claims, saying reports of racism were “definitely untrue”.

Shocking details of racial abuse have emerged in the wake of this week’s multimillion-rand wedding hosted by President Jacob Zuma’s friends at Sun City.

City Press visited the entertainment complex yesterday and separately interviewed four hotel workers and union bosses representing the hotel’s staff.

Last night, Atul Gupta, on behalf of the family, said they were “flabbergasted” by the publicity around the wedding.

City Press can further reveal that:

» A masseuse was allegedly sexually attacked by a male wedding guest in his Cascades hotel room. The Guptas confirmed the incident;

» The Indian politicians who attended the wedding were not high-profile federal ministers, but local politicians from the Uttar Pradesh province.

“It is like the Indian Congress Party allowing a DA MEC to land on an Indian military base,” said a Gauteng ANC leader;

» According to sources, the newlyweds were on Friday afternoon pulled off their plane by police and extensively questioned;

» Government believes that suspended chief of state protocol Bruce Koloane was handling the logistics of the Gupta wedding “as his personal project”; and

» An email Koloane allegedly sent to a colleague granting clearance for the Jet Airways Airbus A330-200 to land at Air Force Base Waterkloof is a central piece of evidence against him.

A police source also told City Press that more than 20 people will be arrested this week for security work done for the Guptas during the wedding.

There was unhappiness within the Gupta family about how departing wedding guests – among them newlyweds Vega Gupta and Aakash Jahajgarhia – were treated by South African officials as they left the country.

A source close to the family told City Press the flight containing wedding guests was delayed at OR Tambo International Airport for four hours. The pilot was questioned at his Rosebank hotel, the source said, which was what led to the extensive delay.

The source described these actions as a show of force by South African authorities.

But Brigadier Phuti Setati, spokesperson of the national police commissioner, said he was not aware that the couple or any guests had been questioned.

Koki Khojane, a Cosatu shop steward who works at Sun City, said a number of the union federation’s members had approached him to complain about racial discrimination at the hands of wedding guests.

“On Tuesday, the Gupta security told waiters who were delivering drinks to the guests’ rooms that they were not allowed in the rooms,” Khojane said.

“Security said that they would bring the waiters towels, toothbrushes and toothpaste.

“This blatantly means that black people smell and the Gupta guests would not be served by smelly black people,” he said.

“One woman who had been working for Sun City for 20 years said this is the worst level of racism she had ever seen.”

Lydia Mohlakane, a shop steward for the catering workers’ union Saccawu, who handles guest relations for the Cascades, made the booking for the man who allegedly attacked a masseuse on Tuesday.

Mohlakane said the man, who was staying in a room in the Cascades, specifically asked for a masseuse (meaning a woman).

“He requested her for 30 minutes between 4pm and 4.30pm,” Mohlakane said.

“At about 4.45pm, I went to the lobby and found that there was some commotion.

“I heard from one of the masseurs (a man) that the lady had been harassed during the massage.”

Another of the spa’s masseuses, who asked not to be named because she feared being victimised, said the woman who was allegedly attacked was “traumatised”.

“She still is, but she doesn’t want to talk about it,” she said.

“She said to me that, after a few minutes of being inside the room, the man started touching her.

“It’s policy that as soon as we feel uncomfortable in any room we should just leave and that’s what she did, and reported the matter.”

The masseuse, too, had a run-in with one of the wedding guests – although it was racial rather than sexual in nature, she said.

“I was also called in on Tuesday to go give a massage but the man looked at me and told me to leave because he wanted to be massaged by a white lady,” she said.

“So I left and informed my superior. I don’t know if a white lady was organised.”

Cosatu’s provincial secretary in North West, Solly Phetoe, said Sun International had undermined South Africa’s Constitution and workers’ rights by allowing the Gupta family to dictate to the company.

“Sun International is defending the undefendable. If I requested them to allow me to bring my own servants, they would never allow that,” he said.

“They should have told the Guptas that, if they don’t want to make use of the black staff, they must take their money and go.”

Richard Hawkins, Sun City’s managing executive, said if any guest asked to bring their own “help”, they would engage with management and decide whether this was in order.

“After discussion, guests are allowed to bring their own people, who are skilled in particular areas, for example a golf instructor or chef, but prior arrangements would have to be made with management first,” said Hawkins. He said he would not divulge any information about guests on Sun City’s grounds.

“I would never divulge anything done by any guest here to any third party. I’m not confirming or denying, either, whether a case of sexual assault has been opened. I’m looking out for the best interests of our employees,” he said.

City Press found unhappy staff in several sections of Sun City.

A chef at The Palace, who asked to remain anonymous, said working with chefs brought in specifically by the Gupta family had been a nightmare.

“On Monday when I walked into the kitchen, I saw that the walkway had been blocked by a stove, as if we were not supposed to associate with the chefs brought in for the Gupta wedding,” the chef said.

“I asked why we were separated as chefs. I didn’t get a response.”

The horrified chef said she saw a chef hired by the Guptas washing his face in one of the kitchen sinks.

“The potatoes would be in a pot on the floor and there they were, coughing all over them and washing their faces in the sink. This was so unhygienic.

“I doubt they were even professionals, because we know that you clean as you go. One of the chefs went to management to report all this, but management did nothing about it – instead we were left with a huge mess.”

It has also emerged that it wasn’t only the Jet Airways Airbus that landed at Waterkloof: the Gupta family also landed their private Cessna Citation Sovereign business jet there on Tuesday.

A photo of the jet with the name of the Guptas’ computer company, Sahara, clearly painted on the tail in blue was taken at Air Force Base Waterkloof on Tuesday.

– Additional reporting by Rapport

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DA, ANC bury pitchforks to fix farm crisis

Lynley Donnelly, M&G, 03 May 2013

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A "cautious alliance" has been formed between the Democratic Alliance and the ANC to address the issues underlying agricultural unrest.

Recent strife in the ­Western Cape's agriculture sector has aggravated already tense ­political relations between the Democratic Alliance-led provincial government and the national ANC government.

Last week, however, a new initiative to address problems in the sector was launched, driven by a cautious alliance of figures from across the political spectrum.

The Future of Agriculture and the Rural Economy (Fare) process was launched by the Western Cape Economic Development Forum, headed by the ANC's Phillip Dexter, and the Western Cape Economic Development Partnership, chaired by former minister Barbara Hogan, and convened by Andrew Boraine.

Marius Fransman, the leader of the ANC in the Western Cape and deputy minister of international relations, attended the launch in support of the initative, along with the Western Cape provincial minister for agriculture and DA member, Gerrit van Rensburg.

The forum and the partnership are independent civil organisations aiming to aid economic growth in the Western Cape.

Common challenges
Despite initially "butting heads" over a "philosophical difference" over how the partnership and the forum were structured, after a set of meetings last year the organisations found that they had identified common challenges facing the regional economy and shared similar ideas about how to solve them, Dexter said at the launch.

Following this, the Fare process was developed. It is aimed at addressing the underlying structural issues facing the sector that led to the recent violent strikes experienced in the Western Cape.

The sector faces a number of long-term challenges, including stagnant growth, farm consolidation, the exodus of farmers, labour casualisation, mechanisation, increased global competition and rising costs chiefly in the form of energy and transport costs and wages. Other problems include farmworker indebtedness, the impact of climate change in the form of water scarcity and food security, potential land policy changes, a lack of skills and housing shortages.

A Fare steering committee has been established, co-chaired by Dexter and Boraine. It will guide a panel of experts whose terms of reference include helping all actors forge a common agenda for the region's agricultural sector, as well as identifying possible projects, resources and partnerships to manage the changes it faces.

The panel includes Venete Klein, vice-president of Business Unity South Africa; academic Karin Kleinbooi, a researcher at the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (Plaas); Adrian Sayers, a former unionist and researcher at the Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit and Jan Theron, coordinator of the labour and enterprise policy research group at the University of Cape Town.

First task
The Fare panel's first task is to complete a report on the sector by September, with recommendations, to be presented to all interested role-players at a series of indabas.

At the launch, both Van Rensburg and Fransman stressed that the Fare process had to be independent of any political interests to remain credible.

"We must make sure that we protect the independence of the team," said Fransman.

Dexter added: "You've got the ANC national government and the DA provincial government and the tensions are always there."

He said, however, that both he and Boraine had experience in managing social dialogue and the divergent interests of different groups.

According to Dexter, the expected report will identify challenges facing the sector, make recommendation to solve them and where interventions are required, institutionalise them.

He gave the example of the need for a rural incubator to support emerging black farmers, which Fare could support by sourcing funds and setting it up.

Following the strikes, tension in the political sphere has been amplified by the war of words that has broken out between the DA and Tina Joemat-Pettersson, the national minister of agriculture, forestry and fisheries, in Parliament.

The DA has voiced concerns that the national government may have helped fund the labour unrest in the province.

Call for investigation
​In a reply to a parliamentary question from the DA, Joemat-Pettersson revealed that the department had funded the Black Association for the Wine and Spirits Industry (Bawsi), led by Nosey Pieterse, with an amount of R4.1-million, a few weeks before the farmworkers' strike broke out.

Pieterse and Bawsi's agricultural union, the Bawsi Agricultural Workers Union of South Africa (Bawusa), were involved in representing workers during the strikes, which became violent.

The DA has called on the auditor general and public protector to investigate the provision of the funds.

In her parliamentary reply, however, Joemat-Pettersson said that, prompted by a Human Rights Watch report on the abuse of farmworkers in the Western Cape, the department had identified Bawsi as a human rights organisation fighting for the rights of vulnerable workers. It had entered into a signed, two-year service-level agreement with the organisation that included a work plan with expected deliverables.

A report in Business Day quoted Pieterse as saying that a portion of the money was used to buy 20 sets of musical instruments to help workers generate additional income. It also said that Bawsi had already submitted its first quarterly report to the department.

Palesa Mokomela, the spokesperson for the minister, said it was a departmental matter. "We satisfied ourselves that all the correct legal processes had been followed when the allocation was made," she said. The minister was waiting for the quarterly report from the department to assess whether the nongovernmental organisation and the projects it had undertaken met the legal requirements of the service-level agreement, Mokomela said. The ministry welcomed the DA's call for an investigation by the auditor general and public protector.

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Rising salary deductions, tariffs ‘negate benefit of pay increases’

 Ntsakisi Maswanganyi ,Business Day,  06 May 2013

 

SOUTH African workers are now unable to see any benefits from salary increases as higher taxes, medical insurance, municipal rates and increases in education fees take their toll on disposable incomes, the latest United Association of South Africa (Uasa) employment report showed on Friday.

These are some of the reasons workers are advancing to employers in this year’s round of wage bargaining now under way.

The report, compiled for the union by Economists.co.za with the aid of Statistics South Africa and Reserve Bank data, showed that disposable income averaged R10,141 per month last year, up from R9,523 in 2011.

The report took into account formal sector employees earning less than R150,000 a year, and did not take into account high-income earners.

Salary deductions rose from an average of R2,612 per month in 2008 to just over R4,360 per month last year, the report showed.

Personal income taxes and the higher costs of medical insurance were identified as the main reasons for the jump in salary deductions over the past four years.

"Unemployment insurance has also increased as the level at which taxes are raised has increased," Economists.co.za chief economist Mike Schussler said.

The body representing consumers in the country, the National Consumer Forum (NCF), came out in support of the Uasa employment report, saying the cost of living had become too high for most consumers.

"What we need to do to help these consumers is to promote a culture of entrepreneurship to make sure that we are able to create more jobs," NCF chairman Thami Bolani said last week.

The inability to afford necessities and make ends meet has led to an increasing uptake of unsecured credit by some workers.

The challenge for most, according to Federation of Unions of South Africa general secretary Dennis George, is that they take up the loans without proper understanding of the implications of defaulting on payments.

"We need to regulate how those garnishee orders are working because sometimes there is an abuse of the system," he added.

Garnishee orders, maintenance orders and other deductions were also identified in the report as those contributing to the meaningful amounts deducted from employee salaries.

The report showed that disposable salaries increased only 6.5%, which, while still above last year’s 5.6% inflation rate, showed that employees did not receive their full increases and seemed to benefit less from them than before.

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2.    COSATU

CITY PRESS SURVEY RESULTS

05 May 2013

South Africa faces massive problems with its economy despite achieving democracy 19 years ago, union federation Cosatu’s general secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi, has said. I think...

·         Corruption is slowing us down (86%, 435 Votes)

·         19 years is too little time to be seeking great transformation (7%, 35 Votes)

·         SA needs to adopt foreign models (6%, 32 Votes)

·         South Africa is on the right path (1%, 6 Votes)

Total Voters: 508

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Vavi: Secure future for youth is crucial

Sunday Sun, 05 May 2013

 

South Africa faces massive problems in its economy, despite achieving democracy 19 years ago, the Congress  of SA Trade Unions [Cosatu] general secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi said on Friday.

‘while we’ve made huge gains since 1994, on the economic front-workers’ lives have not been fundamentally transformed. We still face massive problems in our economy’, the leader said in a speech prepared for delivery.

He said it was crucial to give South African youth the opportunity to work and to have a secure future.

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OPINION-Cosatu’s power in alliance will diminish over time

Tim Cohen, Business Day, 06 May 2013

 

AS MY contributions to this column come to an end, I’ve been indulging in a little crystal ball gazing, which is probably the second most popular sport in South Africa after soccer.

Last week, I took a crack at the economy, concluding that the future was far from bleak, but the economy will grow less than its potential. This week, let me try to suggest some ideas about our political future — ideas which I hasten to say could easily turn out to be totally wrong, a week being a long time in politics, and so on.

Broadly, I see five major trends:

• The African National Congress (ANC) will begin a long decline after next year’s elections, but will remain in power beyond the 2019 poll;

• The centralisation of power will continue, along with the increase in the power of the executive;

• South Africa’s position in Africa will continue to improve, increasing the risk of significant anti-South African sentiment emerging;

• The relationship between the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the ANC will persist in its usual fractious way, but Cosatu will continue to grow weaker; and

• The South African Communist Party (SACP) will implode, or at the very least slide into oblivion, as the abject failure of its doctrine gradually dawns on even its own intellectually blinkered adherents.

Let me start at the end and go backwards, because this last "trend" is, in fact, more of a hope than a prediction. Humans have demonstrated their ability to continue believing false notions long past their sell-by date. Presumably, the SACP can continue to deceive itself well into the next century. But in a way, it’s an important prediction too.

No self-respecting academic would now describe themselves as a Marxist. Those who do are necessarily on the defensive on almost every aspect of their work. It is beyond debate that market systems work more effectively for all concerned, including the poor.

South Africa’s millionaire trade unionists may still espouse what they describe as Marxism, but it’s just a tactic to try and intimidate bosses.

The SACP’s general secretary, Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande, might want to try and boost the teaching of his ideology at universities, but students are voting with their feet.

The 2011 census found that among the fastest-growing and most popular major fields among students at universities and colleges was commerce — more popular even than education. For better or worse, arts, humanities, social sciences and education are showing sharp declines. Just on 23% of all male students, and 27% of all female students now study business, commerce and accounts, up from 19% and 17% in 2001. The number of male arts students has halved between 2001 and 2011.

On my fourth point, I suspect the trend towards more competitive unionism ironically cements the relationship between Cosatu and the ANC, as Cosatu becomes more dependent on legislative methods of holding onto membership, as opposed to shop-floor methods.

In a way this will be a vacillating trend, because the incentive systems between unionists and politicians overlap, but don’t coincide.

You can sense the frustration during the economic downturn of the ANC with Cosatu, since politicians are somewhat rewarded for economic prosperity, and Cosatu’s strikes tend to reduce prosperity and increase strife. This tension will remain, but the ANC still needs Cosatu to capture the vote, so the relationship waxes as elections near and wanes as they depart.

The difference, however, is that the boot is changing foot. Once Cosatu ruled this relationship, and that is underlined by how many trade union leaders got to be office bearers in the ANC. Yet I sense the ANC gradually getting the upper hand, particularly as the economy changes toward a service economy and trade unionism declines.

It’s a great illusion that Cosatu has maintained support in the post-apartheid era. It seems as though it has because the public service has become ANC-supporter dominated, and Cosatu’s public sector unions have picked up this support. But most unions are declining along with their industries.

The really positive aspect of this small list of punditry is South Africa’s position in Africa, which I think will become extremely important — but it carries risks too. The recent comments by the vice-president of Zambia, Guy Scott, that South Africans are "very backward" may have been made in an unguarded moment. But it reflects a prickliness about South Africa that I have experienced elsewhere in Africa. Strangely, it’s also the kind of prickliness South Africans themselves claim to experience regarding European "presumptuousness". A recent example is South Africa’s response to Britain’s decision to stop granting aid. It was met by outrage on the part of South Africa. Yet we seem oblivious to the fact that South Africa decided to tear up parts of trade agreements with Europe — signifying a "go jump" attitude. You can’t have it both ways — except in the minds of South Africa’s diplomats.

South Africa needs to develop a skills set here that it clearly does not have as Africa is going to be the most critical aspect of South Africa’s economy sooner, I suspect, than many realise.

On the national-regional divide in South Africa’s constitution, I’m uncertain, but the fact of centralisation is indisputable. What the provincial authorities actually do is a mystery to me: they simply pass on payments that come from the central government, and the same applies to policies.

The only way the ANC provinces have distinguished themselves is in their ability to divert the flow of cash into the pockets of their own supporters as it passes through their buildings. They can do nothing real, so they do the only thing they can: game the system.

This is a great contrast to the notion of provincialism that underpins the constitution. The idea was for provinces to leverage their unique facilities, but that economic notion transmuted into a political tug-of-war, between pro-provincial parties (the opposition) and the anti-provincial parties (the ANC). The ANC has long since won this battle, and in victory, it in effect negated the structure. The result is a very expensive, useless system which exists only for historical reasons to do with the transfer of power.

But it’s not only the provincial aspect to power centralisation that is important; it’s the shift away from Parliament to the executive. South Africa has always been an executive-dominated political culture, but the new Parliament was meant to reverse that trend. Unfortunately, it has not.

A quick anecdote. I spent a lot of time reporting from Parliament. When I first arrived in Parliament in 1993, the powerhouse reporting bloc was then called "the morning group", now the Independent Group newspapers, routed around The Star in Johannesburg, the Daily News and The Mercury in Durban and the Cape Times and Argus in Cape Town. There must have been a dozen reporters working full time for these publications in Parliament.

Newspapers regularly published an entire page called "what’s on in Parliament". There is now the sum total of one reporter for the entire group. An entire corridor of offices that used to be devoted to the group stands empty, testament to the slashing tactics of the Independent Newspapers and the growing irrelevance of Parliament.

The trend towards executive power is fabulously illustrated by the recent debacle in the Central African Republic. Posting troops outside the country explicitly requires, as per the constitution, a full explanation to Parliament. President Jacob Zuma did issue a perfunctory explanation to the parliamentary portfolio committee, but when that mandate changed, he didn’t bother to inform Parliament and ANC parliamentarians didn’t complain.

ANC MPs have been explicitly told not to ask difficult questions of ministers presenting to portfolio committees, and the ANC’s chief whip, Mathole Motshekga, is not even a member of the ANC national executive committee. Absenteeism in Parliament is chronic. Winnie Mandela was criticised for not attending Parliament in, wait for it, 2010. Since then she rarely makes an appearance, except on the two days in the parliamentary calendar when television cameras appear, the state of the nation address and the budget speech. For this she gets about R1m a year and nobody bats an eyelid.

The prediction that the ANC will begin to lose support is an easy one to make.

The party has just been through a dramatic change in leadership which seems to have made things worse, not better. The organisation is fraught with intense factionalism and is without any coherent leadership. The question is: how much support will it lose?

The situation is helped by the adherence to the National Development Plan, which provides a loose framework for the future, and some direction and dynamism.

But with active opposition from within its ranks, and from its partners Cosatu and the SACP, the plan is a disputed document. Ministers are anyway implementing their own ideas regardless of theoretical adherence to the plan. It’s easy: they simply claim adherence even when doing the opposite.

The big problem is leadership. Once again, there is a great and immediate example — the great Gupta wedding fiasco. The marriage of Vega Gupta to Indian-born Aaskash Jahajgarhia at Sun City exploded into scandal because of the self-appointed status of the Gupta family as "politically connected".

The problem is Mr Zuma has never disassociated himself from this relationship. Actually it turns out he was intending to attend the wedding if the Central African Republic summit didn’t intervene. Even if he did not, three of his wives did.

As a result, the Guptas landed their jet at a military base in South Africa and got a police escort to Sun City.

At the news, some of those running the country threw up their hands in horror, claimed they hadn’t known and now five poor bureaucrats have had to take the fall.

Actually, it’s all theatre. You can tell because despite the protestations of shock, the wedding guests were required to go through customs only when they arrived in Sun City. Fortunately, Home Affairs Minister Naledi Pandor was at the wedding to smooth out any potential problems.

The point is that Mr Zuma has no real idea of how South Africans feel about these things, and his popularity has fallen dramatically. He’s a great insider player, but his "outside" game is appalling, and that will become all too clear next year.

• Last week I incorrectly reported that Ignatius Sehoole was deputy CEO of PwC and on the board of Harith General Partners. In fact Sehoole joined Harith only after he left PWC in 2010.

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Labour rivalry unhealthy

 

Editorial Sunday World, 05 May 2013

 

The apparent squabbles within the Congress of South African Trade Unions [Cosatu] brng into sharp focus the imperative for unbrakeable unity among workers in this country.

They also warn against relegating the interest of workers to political expediency-the apparent source of the troubles besetting the labour federation in recent months.

Reports of tensions between Cosatu general secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi and federations’president Sdumo Dlamini have persisted over time, despite denials.

 

Needlesss to say, divisions among workers representatives are counter-productive as they compromise their mandate to improve wages and working conditions.

It is therefore encouraging that Cosatu’s alliance partner, the ANC, has stepped in to deplore internal wrangling, offering to act as a facilitator.

A deeper introspection within the tripartite alliance is imperative to restore rifts bedeviling Cosatu, which are arguably the afetermath of the ANC’s Mangaung conference last year. Its ramifications continue to dog not only the labour federation, but also the ruling party.

With the general elections on the hhorizon, tensions have escalated. What the ANC wants ahead of the polls is a united front rather than one with partners snipping at its heels.

Which brings Vavi into the firing line, especially for his fierce criticism of the ANC, as well as his adversarial stance against labour brokers, the national development plan and e-tolling.

 

This seems to niggle the party and is the apparent source of the underlying unhappiness.

That Vavi’s stance has apparently made him the target of President Jacob Zuma’s allies is not suprising. It contrasts Dlamini’s cosier relationship with the party, bringing into sharp focus his reported promise to deliver a more compliant Cosatu to the ANC.

Yet this cloak-and-dagger stuff has little to do with labour-related bread-and-butter issues, and puts a risk workers’ only bargaining tool to improve their lot.

Thus, it is incumbent upon the workers to reclaim their power by forcing their leaders to end these power struggles.

___________

Vavi interview: Cartoons, hyenas and graft

Sabelo Ndlangisa @Bhintsintsi, City Press, 05 May 2013

 

In the maelstrom of South African politics, the Cosatu general secretary stands firm against his detractors

Two things that strike you as you walk on to the ninth floor of the new Cosatu building in Braamfontein, Joburg, are framed black-and-white portraits of Chris Hani and Nelson Mandela hanging prominently on the walls, and a series of framed Zapiro cartoons.

There is something heroic, yet unsentimental, about the way these portraits stare back at you. If they represent the country’s heroic past, then the cartoons mirror its troubled present.

The man who occupies the offices, the labour federation’s general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi, is fond of cartoons.

They always festoon his secretariat reports to the federation’s congresses, and often serve to illustrate his scathing critique of the country’s political situation.

In a smaller room where we sit down for the interview, there are three portraits of Oliver Tambo – another struggle icon the 50-year-old labour boss admires.

As workers celebrated Workers’ Day on Wednesday, Cosatu’s leadership is rocked by divisions that threaten to split it down the middle.

And Vavi and his critical stance towards the ANC lie at its centre.

But Vavi says the attacks on him are a “deliberate, coordinated and orchestrated” campaign to find him guilty in the court of public opinion to force him out of his position.

Referring to himself in the third person, Vavi says: “The aim is to weaken him politically, to make him not to be able to coordinate the work of the federation as the (Cosatu) constitution says that he is the centre of organisational coordination of our work.

“And (to get) him to fight fires internally permanently and weaken him politically, raise a massive cloud over his head, and eventually go for the kill. The kill is to get him removed in a small boardroom.”

While the leadership squabbles have not resulted in the loss of members for a 2.2 million- member federation, Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration statistics show that employers now win more than 54% of the cases Cosatu unions have brought before it.

But Vavi reckons that this has to do with how unions are servicing members, and not internal politics.

This should ring alarm bells for unions as surveys conducted by Cosatu’s research arm, Naledi, show that members join unions mainly to get protection from dismissals and unfair disciplinary action, and to improve wages and working conditions.

The divisions also happen at a time when the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report for 2012/13 has ranked SA at the bottom of 144 countries when it comes to employer-employee relations.

The report cites factors such labour relations and wage bargaining flexibility as being among the issues the country has to improve to enhance its global competitiveness.

Cosatu-affiliated unions such the SA Transport and Allied Workers’ Union and the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) are fending off splinter groups that are threatening to nibble away at their support base in their sectors.

At its bargaining conference in March, Cosatu warned that the age profile (40 on average) of affiliates should be a “wake-up call”, and said unions were not doing enough to organise younger workers.

Vavi reckons that the biggest threat facing the federation is that it might split.

“The danger is when workers come to the conclusion that the leaders have abandoned them because they want to fight to finish. There’s a proverb that says the inheritance of brothers who fight to finish is enjoyed by strangers,” he says.

“If Cosatu gets demobilised, completely divided and weakened, all of those things that are in the collective bargaining, organising and campaigns conference will not even be worth the paper they are written on.

“They will not happen.

Cosatu will not drive a listening campaign so that workers can speak to the leadership and express their concerns about a range of issues in the workplace.

“Cosatu will not drive a campaign to ensure that every union reorganises, embarks on organisation development and trains shop stewards . . . so that they can service membership better. The biggest danger of them all is that Cosatu may split because of all the shenanigans that are currently under way.”

Vavi says the federation should fend off a split as this would be the worst legacy the current crop of leaders could bequeath to their successors.

Some of Vavi’s critics in the labour movement argue that his crusade against corruption has turned him into a “liberal” who fails to see that corruption is a prominent feature in all capitalist economies, and they say he is too fixated on public sector graft. But Vavi denies this accusation.

“The (newspapers’) sources are saying the general secretary is leading Cosatu into unchartered waters. They are saying I am fighting corruption in a manner that embarrasses the movement.

“We’ve gone to court with a coalition fighting against companies that are fixing the price of bread and milk, and we’ve been in the Competition Commission to demand that steps must be taken . . . that the companies that are making us eat donkeys (disguised as pure beef) must be punished as part of Cosatu’s consistent work against corruption.

“But people ignore all of that. They say our stance is against government,” he says.

In 2010, Vavi’s wife Noluthando was forced to resign from financial services company SA Quantum after the company was caught in a bribery scandal involving the Mail & Guardian.

SA Quantum had given a boss of a Cosatu-affiliated union a car as a present, allegedly to promote the company’s products to union members.

Some in the organisation argue that part of the opposition to Vavi stems from the way he has intervened in the internal affairs of the unions.

For example, his intervention during the illegal strike at Impala Platinum last year did not endear him to NUM leaders who felt he was encroaching on their turf.

Similarly, a faction of the Chemical, Energy, Paper, Printing, Wood and Allied Workers Union leadership has accused him of being partial in his interventions to resolve the divisions that have crippled the union’s leadership.

It centres on the control of the union’s trust fund and its investment arm – and some say Vavi is partisan.

Even though Vavi creates the impression that some of the leaked information about the Cosatu leadership squabbles does not cost him any sleep, it is clear the Cosatu leadership crisis is taking its toll on his private life. “It is grossly unfair to be subjected to this. All of us have families.

They read (newspapers) and listen to radio, and listen to these shenanigans,” he says.

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Guptagate turning SA into banana republic - Vavi

eNCA,5 May 2013

 

May 5 - Cosatu Secretary General Zwelinzima Vavi says officials suspended in the Gupta wedding scandal should be dealt with accordingly, if it is found they acted without the instructions of their superiors. Vavi was speaking on eNCA's Justice Factor.

The Guptas are turning South Africa into a banana republic, said Congress of SA Trade Unions general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi.

Outraged after the Guptas allegedly discriminated against black people serving them at their wedding, Vavi said that they (the Guptas) had now gone too far.

Speaking on eNCA's Justice Factor today, he said that officials suspended in connection with the unauthorised Gupta jet landing at Waterkloof Air Force Base should be dealt with accordingly if it is found that they acted without the instructions of their superiors.

Five officials, including the Chief of State Protocol Bruce Koloane, have been suspended.

Vavi, addressing the national general council of the Public and Allied Workers' Union of SA in George on Friday, said the real culprits behind the debacle must be exposed.

"We must demand the fullest possible investigation into the whole incident...," the union leader said. 

The real culprits had to be exposed, not "scapegoats", who could not have taken such an "obviously politically sensitive decision," he said.

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GUPTA: Cops bust 9!

Sun Reporter, Sunday Sun, 05 May 2013

 

Nine Tshwane Metro cops were arrested yesterday.

They aleegedly used blue lights on private cars and carried their service firearms as they unofficially escorted the Gupta wedding party from Waterkloof air base to Sun City.

Top metro cop Superintendent Isaac Mahamba said ‘we will do our own investigation on the charges as we need to verify the information with the local police station’.He could not confirm if the men has been suspended.

Several other people linked to the wedding farce could take the blame for the Gupta scandal. Under suspension are; Ambassadoe Bruce Koloane,Brigadier-General Lombard,Brigadier-General Madumane,Lieutenant-Colonel Anderson and Major-General Phumza Gela.

All of them will be investigated and could end up taking punishment for what happened on Tuesday at Waterkloof Air Base in Gauteng.

ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe lost his cool when he heard the news. A jumbo load of wedding guests had flown in to a military air base and skipped immigration and customs formalities.

Then they had set off in an illegal motorcade to Sun City for a four-day Gupta wedding.

Mantashe issued a strongly-worded statement-and the Gupta scandal was born.

Cosatu’s Vavi went to probe allegations of racism at Sun City.

The South African Defence Union called for a top-level commission of inquiry.National secretary Pikkie Greef called the investigation ‘sloppy’ and said it was aimed at pcking out ;lower-level scapegoats’.

The Gupta comedy of errors has more laughs than a Leon Schuster movie. When the wedding guests were proceesed before departure on Friday, it took six long hours, and some expressed outrage.

Nearly everyone touched by the scandal is outraged-including President Jacob Zuma. His close friend and financial adviser,Atul Gupta, has blamed the Indian High Commissioner in Pretorai.

But Atul won’t lose his job-for there’s a growing list of people who might just do that instead of him.                                                                                                                                                                                                        

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Vavi: Economy needs radical restructuring

Sapa, Fin24, 03 May 2013

 

Johannesburg - South Africa faces massive problems in its economy, despite achieving democracy 19 years ago, Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said on Friday.

"While we have made huge gains since 1994... on the economic front workers' lives have not been fundamentally transformed. We still face massive problems in our economy," the Congress of SA Trade Unions leader said in a speech prepared for delivery.

"In the longer term, the only way we can create sustainable jobs, eradicate poverty and build a more prosperous and equal society is through a radical restructuring of our economy."

Vavi was speaking at a Workers' Day celebration at the University of Cape Town.

He said it was crucial to give South African youth the opportunity to work and to have a secure future.

"If we fail, the outcome will be disastrous, not just for the young people themselves, but for all South Africans, who will lose the massive contribution that those young workers have the potential to make if given the opportunity to work and earn a living."

Corruption

Vavi lamented the "appalling tolerance" of corruption in the country.

"In our view such [corrupt] people should not even wait to be disciplined, but offer their resignation," he said.

"All [of] this is wreaking untold damage on the moral fibre of the country. We are moving towards a society in which the morality of our revolutionary movement... is being swept away [by] a culture of individual self-enrichment and 'me-first'."

He said South Africa's "political life" was not exempt from corruption.

"Some corrupt politicians and officials build political support by bribing people to back their factions, which are not based on ideological differences, but on who has the biggest treasure chest to dole out favours."

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Massive problems in SA economy – Vavi

City Press, 4 May 2013

 

South Africa faces massive problems in its economy despite achieving democracy 19 years ago, union federation Cosatu’s general secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi, has said.

“While we have made huge gains since 1994 … on the economic front, workers’ lives have not been fundamentally transformed. We still face massive problems in our economy,” the Cosatu leader said yesterday in a speech prepared for delivery.

“In the longer term, the only way we can create sustainable jobs, eradicate poverty and build a more prosperous and equal society is through a radical restructuring of our economy.”

Vavi was speaking at a Workers’ Day celebration at the University of Cape Town.

He said it was crucial to give South African youth the opportunity to work and to have a secure future.

“If we fail, the outcome will be disastrous, not just for the young people themselves, but for all South Africans, who will lose the massive contribution that those young workers have the potential to make if given the opportunity to work and earn a living.”

Vavi lamented the “appalling tolerance” of corruption in the country.

“In our view, such (corrupt) people should not even wait to be disciplined, but offer their resignation,” he said.

“All (of) this is wreaking untold damage on the moral fibre of the country. We are moving towards a society in which the morality of our revolutionary movement … is being swept away (by) a culture of individual self-enrichment and ‘me first’.”

He said South Africa’s “political life” was not exempt from corruption.

“Some corrupt politicians and officials build political support by bribing people to back their factions, which are not based on ideological differences, but on who has the biggest treasure chest to dole out favours.”

- Sapa

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Vavi foe claims anti-ANC conspiracy

Charles Molele, Matuma Letsoalo, M&G, 03 May 2013

·          

·          

South African Transport and Allied Workers Union leader, Zenzo Mahlangu says a plan to 'eliminate' union bosses is aimed at toppling the alliance.

The battle for the control of Cosatu has turned even dirtier. The general secretary of the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (Satawu), Zenzo Mahlangu, told the Mail & Guardian this week that he feared for his life after receiving death threats.

In an interview, Mahlangu claimed to have evidence that some leaders in Cosatu were working with rival unions to "liquidate" the 2.1-million strong federation with the aim of toppling the ANC-led government in 2019. He said there were already  splinter groups shooting off from four Cosatu unions – the South African Transport and Allied Workers' Union (Satawu), the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru), the South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) and the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM).

The splinter unions, according to Mahlangu, will soon form a new federation that will be opposed to the ANC and the tripartite alliance. He claimed the new federation would try to topple the ANC by organising a total shutdown in key sectors of the economy.

"We might go the Egypt-style route. They are planning an Arab Spring. They are talking to opposition parties. They are targeting 2019."

He believed the newly formed rival unions had identified him and other Cosatu leaders as an obstacle to achieving their goal of forming the new federation that would take on Cosatu and the ANC. He claimed these union leaders were using tactics such as leaking information to Corruption Watch and other law enforcement agencies to target opponents.

Mahlangu is out on bail after he was arrested earlier this year with two former national office bearers of Satawu, Ezrom Mabyana and Robert Mashego, on charges of theft and fraud amounting to R8-million. Corruption Watch has confirmed it investigated Mahlangu but has dropped the case since the Hawks began an investigation.

"To execute the plan, they must eliminate people who are standing between them and the workers," he said. "I am now being investigated. I had food poisoning in April last year. I have been followed more than five times. I no longer go home every day, for fear of being killed or attacked. In December, four gunmen ransacked my house. They questioned my uncle and the gardener, [asking] 'where is the ANC guy who lives here?'

Facilitation process
"We now move with bodyguards wherever we go because we are in danger. The reason we are targeted is because we are obstacles. Last week I was followed for an hour by an unknown assailant. I was forced to go and sleep at the hotel," he said.

Meanwhile, there are claims from within Satawu that Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi was working with former Satawu president Ephraim Mphahlele to cast aspersions on the union's leaders. It is understood that Mphahlele, who has since formed a splinter union, the National Transport Movement, handed over a dossier implicating Mahlangu and others in corruption to Corruption Watch and the Hawks.

Mahlangu said Satawu was planning to raise their unhappiness about the conduct of "some Cosatu leaders" during the recently started "facilitation process" initiated by Cosatu to look at allegations made against Vavi.

Although Mahlangu refused to divulge details, the M&G understands that Satawu is expected to accuse Vavi of interfering in its internal affairs in its submission to the facilitation process. Leaders of the transport union claim that Vavi gatecrashed their meeting last year, at which they were discussing the future of Mphahlele with the intention of saving him from being sacked. The union will also accuse Vavi of providing Corruption Watch with information that seeks to implicate Mahlangu in alleged corruption.

Mahlangu said he and other leaders were currently visiting provinces to explain his arrest to ordinary members of the union. "A larger portion of Satawu leaders have questions [about the investigations]. There was supposed to be courtesy to say we [Corruption Watch] are investigating you. I expected them to say we must give a presentation. We are not afraid of being investigated."

Internal process
In a statement, Corruption Watch told the M&G that it did receive complaints regarding Satawu leaders but it had not pursued the case because the Hawks were now investigating financial irregularities within the transport union.

Asked to comment about the latest allegations made against him, Vavi said: "Allegations against the general secretary must be submitted to the Cosatu internal process. I don't want to even listen to the allegations in the media when there is an internal process."

Mphahlele, however, denied that he was working closely with Vavi to target Satawu's current senior leaders and leaking information to the Hawks and Corruption Watch. "I vehemently dispute that," he said. "It is a lie. Vavi has never been part of any investigation against Satawu. The information to Corruption Watch was sent by Satawu shop stewards based at SAA.

"With regard to the Hawks case, I was investigating financial irregularities at Satawu. I then hit a snag because I couldn't get the necessary financial information from Satawu leaders. That's when I reported the matter to the Hawks."

Mphahlele also denied that he was poaching Satawu's members, saying people abandoned Satawu because it was not properly servicing its members. He said his union joined the National Council of Trade Unions (Nactu) and that he was unaware of a new federation being formed.

"We're a proud affiliate of a federation, Nactu. I am a member of the ANC. I have never spoken to anyone from the DA. It is also a lie that I am close to the Cosatu general secretary. That's a lie. They are trying to vilify Vavi for malicious reasons but that has got nothing to do with me. I'm not close to him and I have never been close to him."

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3.    South Africa

Rand holds on to three-week high

SABC News, 06 May 2013

South Africa's rand holds steady to a three-week high against the dollar today. The rand closed on Friday at R8.91 versus the dollar by 1547 GMT compared with Thursday's last trade at R8.95. 

The local unit reached a session high of 8.9011 earlier on Friday, its strongest since April 12. On Monday the rand is trading at R8.92 to the US dollar; at R13.90 to pound sterling; at R11.71 to the euro; and at 9.17 to the Australian dollar. 

The euro is at $1.31 and the dollar is trading at 99.08 Japanese yen. In Nigeria, one US dollar is trading at 157.90 naira;  in Kenya, at 83.50 shilling;  in Botswana, at 8.08 pula; and in Egypt, at 6.94 Egyptian pounds.

Today, Statistics South Africa releases the unemployment rate for the first quarter of 2013.

The gold board declined by 2.3% to 1 485

Stocks on the JSE closed mixed, with the All Share index gaining 1.3% to 39 592. Financials gave up 0.2 % to 30 018 and Industrials 25 rose 1.4 percent to 44 091.

 

The gold board declined by 2.3% to 1 485, while the Top 10 Resources index increased by 3% to 44 774. The yield on the R157 government bond ended at 5.07 %.

 In London the FTSE 100 ended 0.9 % firmer at 6 521.  While in Paris, the CAC 40 closed 1.4 percent higher at 3 913, and the DAX in Frankfurt rose 2 % to 8 122.

 US stocks rose to record highs on Friday, with the Dow industrials soaring above 15 000  points and the S&P 500 index above 1 600, after the government reported the US economy added more jobs than projected in April and the jobless rate fell to a four-year low.

 The Dow Jones strengthened by 1 %  to 14- 974, the Nasdaq gained 1.1 % to 3 379, and the S&P 500 index closed 1% higher at 1 614.

Japan's Nikkei is closed for a public holiday, and in Hong Kong the Hang Seng has increased by 0.9% so far this morning to 22 892.

 In China, the HSBC services Purchasing Managers' Index fell to 51.1 in April from 54.3 in March, with new order expansion the slowest in 20 months.

The ASX All Ordinaries Share index in Australia is 0.8% stronger at 5 146. 

And in India, on the Bombay stock exchange, the SENSEX is 0.1% lower at 19 574.

In commodities, gold is trading at 1 475 dollars and platinum at 1 494 dollars an ounce.
Finally, Brent crude oil is trading at 105.30 cents a barrel.

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Arrested SABC staff released in DRC: report

Sapa , Times Live, 06 May 2013

 

Two SABC crew members who were arrested while trying to broadcast a soccer match in the Democratic Republic of Congo have been released and hope to return to South Africa on Monday, it was reported.

Two technical crew members were kicked out of the TP Mazembe Stadium, in Lubumbashi, minutes before the start of the CAF Champions League clash between Orlando Pirates and TP Mazembe on Sunday afternoon, the SABC reported. A radio reporter's cellphone simcard was confiscated.

The crew members were arrested, but were later released and were escorted to their hotel. According to the national broadcaster, they hoped to leave on Monday.

The matter had been taken up with the consul general in Lubumbashi, who would assist the SABC crew, international relations and co-operation spokesman Clayson Monyela was quoted as telling the SABC.

Even though Pirates lost 1-0 to TP Mazembe in the DRC, they went into the clash with a 3-1 lead from the first leg at Orlando Stadium two weeks ago, and have made it through to the group stages of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) Champions League.

The SABC broadcast the first leg of the match. It was reportedly agreed that it would also broadcast the DRC match, but this did not happen.

SABC spokesman Kaizer Kganyago said the issue would be discussed with the relevant authorities.

Orlando Pirates chairman Irvin Khoza voiced disappointment about what had happened, and told the SABC he would raise the issue in two weeks' time at a CAF meeting.

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More heat on Pule as police plan probe

 Bekezela Phakathi, Business Day, 06 May 2013

 

PRESSURE has continued to mount on Communications Minister Dina Pule, with reports on Sunday that the South African Police Service had agreed to investigate the allegations of corruption involving appointments in her department after the Democratic Alliance (DA) requested this last month.

Ms Pule apparently faced a lengthy grilling by Parliament’s ethics committee following allegations in the media that funds disappeared at the ICT Indaba held in Cape Town in June, sponsored by Telkom, MTN and Vodacom and the Department of Communications.

She has denied the claims, describing the allegations as a "smear campaign". In addition to her alleged role in the disappearance of the funds, Ms Pule will also be quizzed on the suspected involvement in the indaba of Phosane Mngqibisa — the man alleged to be her boyfriend — and her alleged meddling in tender processes to benefit him.

The DA said at the weekend that President Jacob Zuma should suspend "(the) compromised minister ... until such stage as these investigations are completed and the outcomes are known".

MPs’ disciplinary hearings are always held behind closed doors, or in camera, in terms of the constitution and the rules of Parliament.

Once the panel has discussed what it has heard, it will write a report, which will be given to the speaker of the National Assembly, Max Sisulu.

Following this, the report will be made public.

Panel chairman Ben Turok, an African National Congress MP, could not say how long this process would take.

Last month, the DA approached the police alleging corruption in appointments made at the department and its entities.

DA communications spokes-woman Marian Shinn requested that Ms Pule be investigated, together with suspended SABC chief financial officer Gugu Duda, SABC CE Lulama Mokhobo and Khemano Events head Mr Mngqibisa.

Department spokesman Siya Qoza said on Sunday that Ms Pule had always "co-operated fully with legitimate investigations by competent institutions".

"She will continue to do so."

Khemano was also allegedly involved in the ICT indaba.

The DA’s calls for Ms Pule to be investigated by the police were largely based on an article published in the Sunday Times in March. The newspaper "had uncovered evidence of an internal audit showing that Mr Mngqibisa engineered getting friends and relatives on the boards of the Post Office, Sentech, Usasa and the SABC with the full knowledge of Ms Pule".

Ms Shinn said: "The DA trusts that this investigation will be met with full disclosure by the minister and all other parties involved, and that appropriate steps are taken should a case for prosecution be established.

"The high levels of corruption in South Africa need to be met by swift action, especially when it takes place at the very top. This investigation is hopefully the first step towards ensuring that this happens," she said.

The department was still to respond to requests for comment yesterday. Last month, Ms Pule hit at Ms Shinn after she had approached the police. The minister said : "Her (Ms Shinn’s) actions seem to either suggest that she is more than happy to use government resources to score cheap political points or prove that, indeed, the devil has shiploads of work for idle minds."

The public protector is also investigating Ms Pule in connection with the ICT Indaba.

Last week, Department of Communications director-general Rosey Sekese won an out-of-court settlement in a battle with Ms Pule, allowing Ms Sekese to return to work after she was forced to approach the courts to lift her "special leave". She was twice locked out of her office and police were called in to evict her from the building. With Business Day reporter

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SA varsities ‘should create workplace-based learning opportunities’

 Khulekani Magubane,Business Day,  06 May 2013

 

SOUTH African universities should work towards increasing work-based learning opportunities for their students, Alexander Forbes CE Edward Kieswetter said on Friday at his inauguration as the first chancellor of the Da Vinci Institute, a private higher education institution in Johannesburg.

South Africa has a high graduate unemployment rate, with many of its educated youth unable to make that essential first step into the workplace to gain working experience.

Mr Kieswetter said the design of education in South Africa allowed for "work integration" and that should be used effectively.

"If we don’t take advantage of that, the ones who will lose are the unemployed graduates ."

The Da Vinci Institute is a 20-year-old body involved in research and education. Education is one of the government’s priority areas as the country bids to accelerate economic development and chip away the pervasive joblessness. South Africa aspires to be a developed economy by 2030.

The government and private sector have in recent years launched various initiatives aimed at improving access and raising the standard of education, training and skills development. South Africa’s high graduate unemployment rate is compounded by challenges in the delivery of basic education.

Mr Kieswetter said the National Development Plan (NDP) had identified challenges in education that the government and the private sector could co-operate to address. "Our (NDP), through its diagnostic report, has highlighted that notwithstanding the gains since 1994, for many of our fellow South Africans there remains little, if any, prospect of an improvement of the quality of their respective lives ."

In South Africa, the likelihood of attaining decent employment, acceptable human development and reasonable economic participation remained remote for many, Mr Kieswetter said.

During an address to South African ambassadors in Pretoria last month, President Jacob Zuma said the NDP was crafted to include the sentiments of South African society at large.

The consultations with members of the public that went into crafting the plan made it unique when compared with similar ones around the world.

"If we said the ruling party, which has capable people, must produce a plan — no matter how beautiful it was — it would have been attacked by everybody," Mr Zuma said.

"If we said the government must produce a plan, it would have also been attacked immediately it reared its head," he said.

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McBride 'heavily indebted' and must find a job

Sapa, M&G, 05may 2013

 

·          

Former Ekurhuleni metro police chief Robert McBride is "heavily indebted" and needs to start looking for a job, according to a report.

"I owe lots of people money," McBride told City Press. "I had to sell lots of my things. Fortunately some of my family, friends and comrades assisted me."

McBride spent R1.7-million on legal fees.

On Friday, the state lost its bid to appeal against McBride's acquittal on charges of drunken driving and attempting to obstruct justice.

The high court in Pretoria ruled on Friday the state had not raised any question of law that the Supreme Court of Appeal should consider.

McBride was arrested in 2006 after crashing his official car on the R511 near Hartbeespoort Dam following a Christmas party.

Pretoria regional magistrate Peet Johnson in September 2011 sentenced him to five years' imprisonment, but he appealed to the high court in Pretoria. Judges Cynthia Pretorius and Lettie Malopa-Setshosa acquitted him in March this year, on the grounds the state had not proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt, despite McBride's "strange" behaviour. They set aside McBride's five-year prison sentence.

The state applied for leave to appeal against the ruling on various technical grounds. City Press reported McBride felt vindicated, but angry. "It's good to win, especially when you know it's a personal issue against you and not a matter of law," he was quoted as saying.

"But despite the judges' findings of police manipulation and evidence fabrication, there seems to be a lack of interest in the real issue behind the whole saga – the involvement of the South African Police Service in violent crime." – Sapa

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FIVE MINUTES: South Africa

Daily Maverick Staff Reporter ,06 May 2013

 

A round-up of the day’s news from South Africa.

ZUMA URGES CO-OPERATION IN GUPTA WEDDING AIRCRAFT INVESTIGATION

President Jacob Zuma has urged all parties involved in the Gupta aircraft affair to “co-operate fully with the investigation”. To date, nine officials and members of the South African Police Service have been suspended over the landing of an A330 Airbus aircraft at Waterkloof Air Force Base on Tuesday. It was ferrying guests to a wedding hosted by the Gupta family, close friends of Zuma. The Presidency stressed that the investigation should not impact on the good relationship between India and South Africa. Justice minister Jeff Radebe there was no “executive authority” granted for the landing of the aircraft.

GUPTA FAMILY ISSUE ‘GENERAL APOLOGY’ OVER WEDDING SCANDALS

The Gupta family have issued “a general apology to all affected, including the South African and Indian governments, the local authorities, the South African public and especially our guests” over a number of incidents that took place during a family wedding in the country. Atul Gupta said the family was simply trying to give niece Vega Gupta a “memorable wedding on South African soil". The apology followed a major scandal over the wedding plane landing at Waterkloof military base, allegations of racism by guests, and an alleged sexual assault on a masseuse by a guest. It has led to a major diplomatic incident between South Africa and India. The Guptas said they “regret any incidents at the Sun City venue of which the family was unaware. The allegations of racism regarding the staff are definitely untrue”.

NW COSATU THREATEN MASS ACTION OVER GUPTA GUESTS’ RACISM

Wedding guests at the Gupta wedding at the Palace of the Lost City hotel in Sun City have been accused of racism after they allegedly asked not to be served by African staff. City Press newspaper reported that white bodyguards employed by the Guptas prevented black staff from entering guests’ rooms. Sun City staff said the bodyguards were told to supply them with toothpaste, toothbrushes and towels to clean themselves before entering guests’ rooms. The Gupta family have denied the claims, saying they were “definitely untrue”. The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) in the North West was outraged by the claims, and is threatening mass action against the Guptas and Sun International.

SIU DELIVERS REPORT ON SABC TO ZUMA

The Special Investigations Unit (SIU) has handed over its report on the SABC to President Jacob Zuma, reports the Sunday Independent.  The report could see former SABC bosses face criminal charges. The report is one of 20 given to Zuma to sign off, and a further 16 are du to be given to the president by the end of the month. Several reports have implicated former SABC bosses in alleged irregular, fraudulent and corrupt deals at the public broadcaster since 2005. Other reports delivered include the investigation into the Department of Correctional Services, which started in 2002. The SIU has been criticized over the time it takes to complete investigations.

MCBRIDE FREE, BUT OWES A FORTUNE IN LEGAL FEES

Robert McBride is a free man, but is imprisoned by a huge debt. The former Ekurhuleni metro police chief told City Press he is “heavily indebted” and owes “lots of people money”. The six-year-long court case in which McBride was accused of drunk driving has cost over R1.75 million in legal fees. The North Gauteng High Court on Friday refused the National Prosecuting Authority leave to appeal McBride’s acquittal. He told the newspaper it was “good to win, especially when you know it’s a personal issue against you and not a matter of law”. He said the real story behind his case was that the South African Police Service was involved in violent crime. He denied he was drunk, as he is diabetic.

MTHEMBU DENIES ANC VIST TO MANDELA WAS IN BAD TASTE

ANC spokesman Jackson Mthembu has strong words over accusations that the party used a visit to former president Nelson Mandela to brush up its public image. He told the Sunday Times it was “bullshit” and that the world needed to see Mandela. President Jacob Zuma, Cyril Ramaphosa and party chairwoman Baleka Mbete made a highly publicised visit to Mandela, who was shown looking blankly at the camera, and closing his eyes as a camera flash goes off. Grandson Mandla Mandela told the newspaper family members who allowed the visit should be held accountable as “people allowed it to happen”. Mandela’s oldest daughter Makaziwe said the footage was “undignified and in bad taste”.

NEW DA YOUTH LEADER WANTS TO DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY

The Democratic Alliance’s youth wing has a new federal chair. Mbali Ntuli was elected leader at the DA Youth’s conference in Johannesburg in what Anchen Dreyer, deputy federal chairperson of the Democratic Alliance, called a “tightly contested” and “robust election”. The KwaZulu-Natal based Ntuli, a young businesswoman with her own events company and owner of two taxis inherited from her father as well as a degree in social science, told City Press she believes the DA needed to be “a bit punchier as a party. We should be discussing hard issues like marijuana, drugs, alternative housing solutions”. She said South Africa was “stuck as a country in doing things the same way. What we need is something different.”

PULE BACKTRACKS ON ACCUSATIONS AGAINST SUNDAY TIMES

As a parliamentary probe into communications minister Dina Pule‘s role in an ICT Indaba takes place behind closed doors, the minister is alleged to have retracted her claims that “handlers” were using the Sunday Times to discredit her. The Mail & Guardian reported that while she has not apologised to the newspaper, as demanded by editor Phylicia Oppelt, Pule’s lawyer Ronnie Bokwa approached the newspaper to broker an “armistice”. Oppelt challenged the minister to prove her allegations, or apologise. Pule failed to arrive at the peace meeting, sending deputy-director general Themba Phiri to apologise on her behalf. Pule also face an investigation by the public protector, and another by the police looking in to allegations of corruption against her.

NO DEMINERS MISSING IN SENEGAL, SAYS DIRCO

The department of international relations and co-operation (Dirco) has denied that 12 South African deminers have been kidnapped in Senegal, Sapa reported. Spokesman Clayson Monyela said reports coming out of Senegal were “untrue”. German news agency, DPA, quoting a Senegalese agency, said 12 employees of Mechem went missing on Friday, and thought to have been kidnapped in the Casamance region. It said authorities were trying to secure their release, but said it was not clear who could be behind the kidnapping. The Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance (MFDC) has been fighting for independence in Casamance since 1982 and has banned the clearing of mines in the area.

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4.    Alliance

ANC won’t settle for less than two thirds majority: Zuma

SABC News, 0 5 May 2013

President Jacob Zuma says the ANC wants nothing less than a two thirds majority in next year's general elections. Zuma was launching the party's Gauteng election campaign in Johannesburg.

Gauteng is expected to be a battleground for votes, as the DA has set its sights on taking control of the provincial government.
Zuma says the party's volunteer brigade will play a crucial role in the ANC's bid to win a two-thirds majority in the elections.

Zuma, ANC provincial chairperson Paul Mashatile and representatives of the tripartite alliance told volunteers that the success of the party's campaign depended on the effectiveness of the brigade.

Zuma says the volunteers should use their good work to ensure that communities are open to the party's message.

Mashatile has thrown down the gauntlet to the Democratic Alliance. He has rejected the DA's claims that it can take Gauteng away from the ANC.

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Thousands gather Moses Kotane Volunteer Brigades launch

Warren Mabona, The New Age, 05 May 2013

Thousands of people gathered at the Standard Bank Arena in Johannesburg on Sunday morning for the launch of the ANC's Moses Kotane Volunteer Brigades.

The event was expected to be addressed by President Jacob Zuma and Arts and Culture Minister, Paul Mashatile. While waiting for the two ANC bigwigs, governing party supporters sang various struggle songs and danced on the premises.

Most of them were dressed in ANC-branded attire and the weather was slightly windy, sunny and warm.

ANC supporter Sharon Leshiba, 30, from Sedibeng in the same province brought along her one-year-old baby daughter, Olwethu. She described herself to The New Age as a staunch member and dupporter of the ruling party.

"I like the ANC wholeheartedly and I grew up attending its rallies. That is why I don't mind bringing my child along," she said.

Asked if Olwethu was not detrimentally exposed to the cold, Leshiba said: "She is used to this kind of a situation. I always take her along and I hope she will also become a strong ANC comrade when she grows up."

But the constant cries of the child indicated some discomfort on her part.

Another attendant, Jack Mabunda, 29, from Daveyton on the East Rand - said the ANC needed the support of every South African "because it emancipated the country from the claws of apartheid."

"This is a liberation movement and I will never stop supporting it. We are here to listen to our leaders and I hope they will inspire us with their speeches," said Jack.

Zuma and Mashatile arrived at around 11:40 amid ullulations and fanfare. They slouched themselves on the two white couches behind the podium.

While seated, Zuma and Mashatile could be seen whispering "somethings" to each other and giggling. Gauteng provincial secretary for the ANC, David Makhura, played the role of programme director for the formal proceedings, which started at 12pm.

ANC NEC members Pule Mabe and Ngoako Ramatlhodi also put in appearances at the event.

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MKVA backs McBride

Dudu Dube, The New Age, 05 May 2013

The MK Military Veterans Association (MKVA) is at loggerheads with the National Prosecuting Authority over its pursuit of Robert McBride. 

They believed that McBride was being victimised for his role in the 1986 Magoo’s Bar bombing, for which he was sentenced to death by the apartheid goverment.

Although the North Gauteng High Court dismissed its application for leave to appeal McBride’s acquittal last Friday, the NPA has not ruled out petitioning the Supreme Court of Appeals.

McBride recently won an appeal against his conviction and a five-year jail sentence for drunken driving and defeating the ends of justice by the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court in 2011. MKMVA president Kibby Maphatsoe said McBride’s prosecution was from the start “an act of vengeance”.

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5.    International

Bangladesh building collapse death toll nears 600: army

Sapa-AFP |, Times Live, 05 May 2013

 

The confirmed death toll from Bangladesh's worst industrial disaster approached 600 Sunday after dozens of bodies were pulled from the wreckage of a nine-storey building housing factories, the army said.

Lieutenant Imran Khan of the army control room, set up to coordinate the rescue, told AFP recovery efforts had gathered pace and the confirmed death toll now stands at 590.

The building housing five garment factories collapsed near the capital Dhaka on April 24, trapping more than 3,000 people. Some 2,437 people have been rescued, Khan said.

Hundreds of distraught relatives gathered at the site on the twelfth day, as cranes and bulldozers cut through a mountain of concrete and mangled steel.

Officials said the bodies pulled out have missing limbs in some cases or have decomposed, delaying identification.

"We've identified only a handful of them by their mobile phones that were found in their pockets or identity cards given by the factories," deputy administrator of Dhaka district, Zillur Rahman Chowdhury, told AFP.

He said more bodies were expected to be found in the rubble as the stench of decaying bodies coming from the rubble remained strong.

Preliminary findings of a government probe have blamed vibrations by four giant generators on the compound's upper floors for triggering the collapse.

The building architect Masood Reza told AFP he designed the structure to house a shopping mall and offices, not factories.

Police have arrested twelve people including the plaza's owner and four garment factory owners for forcing people to work on April 24, even though cracks appeared in the structure the previous day.

Factory workers have held protests calling for tough punishment for those responsible for the disaster, and demanding improved safety regulations.

The tragedy came just five months after a fire killed 111 people in a nearby garment factory.

UK retailer Primark, Italy's Benetton and Spanish firm Mango have admitted they had placed orders in the factories based in the compound, triggering an angry response in many Western countries.

Bangladesh is the world's second-largest garment exporter after China. The industry accounts for 80 percent of the country's exports and more than 40 percent of its industrial workforce.

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Recession-hit Portugal announces more austerity measures

SAPA, SABC News, 04 May 2013

Portugal has announced a new round of austerity measures to keep its bailout programme on track after the European Commission revised downward the country's economic forecasts. 

The measures will save 4.8 billion euros ($6.3 billion ) by 2015, Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho said. 

The measures include eliminating 30 000 of Portugal's 580 000 public-sector jobs. 

Public employees work week hours will be extended from 35 to 40 hours, and their social security contributions raised. 

Spending by government ministers will be trimmed by 10%. Passos Coelho announced a new tax on all but the lowest pensions and an increase of retirement age from 65 to 66 years. Portugal's gross domestic product was expected to shrink 2.3% in 2013 and grow 0.6% the following year, the European Commission said in its spring economic forecast for the eurozone. 

In February, the commission forecast a contraction of 1.9% for this year and a growth rate of 0.8% for 2014. Critics blame the austerity policies for the recession, in which unemployment has topped 17%. 

The policies have been successful in lowering Portugal's borrowing costs.

The austerity measures were agreed in 2011 with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund in return for a bailout for Lisbon worth 78 billion euros. 

The policies have been successful in lowering Portugal's borrowing costs. Interest rates continued going down Friday with the yield for benchmark 10-year bonds at 5.5%, its lowest level since October 2010. 

Analysts attributed the development partly to a decision on Thursday by the European Central Bank to cut interest rates to a historic low of 0.5%. The Portuguese government earlier announced budget cuts worth 1.3 billion euros for this year in sectors including health and education. The cuts would address a budget shortfall created by the Constitutional Court, which struck down four earlier cost-cutting measures. 

Portugal is trying to slash its budget deficit from 6.4% of its gross domestic product in 2012 to 5.5% this year, to secure the disbursement of its next loan tranche from the EU and IMF. The government is trying to counter mounting anti-austerity protests by preparing measures to boost employment, such as tax incentives and cheap business loans.    

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Rights trio condemns harassment of media in South Sudan

 Nicholas Kotch , Business Day, 06 May 2013

 

JUBA — Less than two years old, the Republic of South Sudan is Africa’s youngest country. But having fought for its independence in 2011 from the rest of Sudan for the best part of 50 years, the government cannot in all honesty play the still-learning-to-walk card.

It will be interesting to see if it tries to do so after stinging criticism at the weekend from media activists.

"Security force harassment and unlawful detention of journalists is undermining freedom of expression in South Sudan," three bodies said on Friday on World Press Freedom Day.

"The government should rein in its security forces and investigate and prosecute all attacks on journalists," Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Committee to Protect Journalists said, in an alert that did not consider the country’s tender age.

The statement listed several incidents in the past year, ranging from a murder to beatings and detentions, noting that South Sudan had dropped 12 places in the World Press Freedom index since last year.

The National Security Service was singled out as the main culprit and the unsolved killing of columnist Isaiah Abraham as the most serious abuse.

Mr Abraham, a regular critic of President Salva Kiir and his government, was shot outside his home in Juba, the capital, on December 5. Leading figures in the establishment attended his funeral and authorities said the US Federal Bureau of Investigation would join the hunt for his killers. No progress has been reported since, but harassment has continued, with Alfred Tabane, chief editor and owner of the Juba Post, one of South Sudan’s best-known journalists, a target.

The government has yet to respond formally to the joint statement by the three media freedom groups. Their views will have to be taken seriously — or at least seem to be — by donors who are keeping South Sudan afloat to the tune of at least $1.2bn a year. The country needs everything, from roads to schools.

Joy Kwase Eluzai, chairwoman of parliament’s information commission, did not deny the importance of the warning on the treatment of journalists and media houses.

"But I don’t think we are out of the ordinary and we are not so long from the struggle," she said in a Juba hotel last week at the main World Press Freedom Day event.

"And you know this is a broader problem than just media. I am an MP, but I can still be threatened in my own house," said Ms Eluzai, a ruling party stalwart.

Residents of Juba report fairly high levels of insecurity and gunfire at night, often involving security agencies or armed former combatants. The former colonial trading post on the banks of the Nile is turning into a modern city with its attendant ills.

Ms Eluzai’s commission is working on three media bills — with the assent of journalists’ bodies so far.

Victor Keri Wani, deputy editor-in-chief of the Citizen, Juba’s main independent daily, spent decades in exile and has an old-school distaste for media regulation.

"You don’t need media laws if both sides, the media and the government, know how to behave and if they know the pros and cons of each other," he said in an interview. The Citizen’s motto is "Fighting Corruption and Dictatorship Every Day".

With elections coming up in 2015, and signs of tension in the once monolithic ruling party, called the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement during the struggle, the outlook for media freedom and good governance generally is cloudy.

"What we are seeing is considerable deterioration in the relationship between the authorities and the media," says Juba-based Charles Haskins of the Fondation Hirondelle, a media development body.

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Walmart's dazzle fizzles for Massmart investors

Thekiso Anthony Lefifi And Adele Shevel,Business Day, 05 May 2013

 

IT HAS been more than a year since global retailer Walmart rode into South Africa after fighting tooth and nail to take the controlling share of Massmart. But, despite promises, consumers and investors have yet to reap the benefits.

It was the continent’s largest merger and acquisition transaction, attracting attention from various corners of the world.

In its bid to acquire the Woodmead-based retailer, Walmart’s management had a bible-thick docket of reasons why the R16.5bn deal should be allowed.

At the time of the courtship, Walmart International’s CEO Doug McMillon was not interested in accepting anything less than 50% ownership of Massmart. “We are retailers, not investors,” he said.

But what has the Walmart move done for Massmart so far?

Massmart’s operating profit for the 26 weeks to December fell by 17.7% and headline earnings dropped 21.2%.

The retailer said that, if you strip out the costs of the Walmart deal, integration of the two companies and currency volatility, operating profit would actually have increased by 6.1%.

If Massmart’s minority shareholders expected instant profits to flow from having such a powerful big brother, they have been sorely disappointed by the lacklustre performance so far. But they remain optimistic that at some stage the takeover by the Arkansas-based retailer will deliver the goods.

Just last week, Africa’s third-largest retailer told its shareholders that, for the first 14 weeks of this year, total sales were up by 10.3% and comparable sales increased by 6%, indicating a slower sales trend in South Africa. But the market did not like it at all — Massmart’s share price took a 3.3% knock on the day, its biggest one-day decline since June 2011.

The problem is the disconnect between its promises and what it has delivered. Walmart’s entry into South Africa was full of promises to introduce low prices as some kind of relief for squeezed consumers. But its latest line is: “If current sales trends continue it will be difficult to meet objectives to achieve trading profit growth.”

Apparently, changes have been made in the background — although these have not filtered through into sales just yet.

First Avenue Asset Management portfolio manager Matthew Warren believes Massmart’s supply chain has been completely revamped, with new distribution centres and the IT investments required to back the physical operation -thanks to the Walmart transaction.

Mr Warren said Massmart’s investment in food retail has been “stepped up dramatically” and the supply chain back to the farm is being sorted out slowly.

“There is a fierce battle coming that will put substantial pressure on the incumbent competitors and ultimately benefit the consumer,” he said.

But Massmart is not a cheap share, sitting on a price-to-earnings ratio of 29 -more than double the value of 13.9 of the All Share index.

After the deal was announced, the stock soared on expectations that Massmart would cash in on this new relationship. This still has not happened as many expected.

Because of the relatively high price of Massmart’s stock, First Avenue does not own any of its shares at the moment.

“We want to buy high-quality retailers, but Massmart is now at a very full value. It’s not necessarily overpriced though, so if the price drops below this current level, we’ll buy the stock,” said Mr Warren.

Absa Investments analyst Chris Gilmour was one of the deal’s most outspoken supporters. He expected Walmart to “revolutionise retail” and predicted that within two years South African consumers would see a completely different landscape.

Now, Mr Gilmour has a different take. “I am profoundly disappointed. I am stunned,” he said, referring to the dearth of lower sustained prices and slower growth in the group.

Mr Gilmour still believes the retailer is capable of “revolutionising” food retailing, especially through better importation of private label products but he believes political fear is holding it back.

Theresa Heath, retail analyst at Stanlib, said there is the sense that Walmart has not been as price disruptive as everyone expected. “We would all know about it if it had.”

Old Mutual’s senior portfolio manager Arthur Karas said consumers will see Walmart products appearing in Massmart stores.

So far, limited Walmart products have hit the shelves of Massmart-owned shops. But Mr Karas said consumers will already have experienced extended promotions that are typical of Walmart’s “every-day-low-pricing” strategy, which run for three months instead of for the week-long discount periods South Africans are used to.

Makro CEO Doug Jones said: “Walmart has forced us to collaborate more with suppliers.”

It may just be a waiting game.

Walmart is prepared to be patient and is investing now at the expense of short-term gain, according to Sanlam Investment Management (SIM).

SIM head of equity research Roy Chapman said Walmart has brought extensive “retail intellectual property” to Massmart’s business — which undoubtedly will mean a change in its culture over time.

Mr Chapman said the full effect of the “Walmart way” will only be felt in South Africa and Africa when it is ready to be more aggressive in those markets. But that is still some way off.

Mr Warren believes Massmart’s earnings will inevitably grow as sales improve, but it is more likely that the pressure on the consumer will delay this profit growth for a while longer.

While cynics would claim that Walmart’s sole goal is to suck as much dividend from Massmart as possible, without cutting prices for the consumers, analysts disagree.

Mr Chapman said he sees Walmart as a serious and responsible corporate citizen.

“[Walmart] is investing in the business in order to maximise returns, and other shareholders will also reap the benefits of its strategy in time.

“And, of course, part of the return will be in the form of dividends — for all shareholders,” Mr Chapman said.

The majority of Walmart’s earnings come from slow growth economies, where it already has a large market share. But Walmart is likely to benefit from the much higher growth expected from Africa, so the retail giant is expected to remain involved in Massmart’s strategy on the continent.

The extent of Walmart’s eagerness to tap the African consumer can be seen in the fact that it accepted a number of restrictive conditions from South Africa’s regulators to make the deal happen, according to Mr Karas.

• This article was first published in Sunday Times: Business Times

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6.    Comment

COSATU E-toll Campaign goes ahead in 2013

 

For more information, contact COSATU Offices

                                

Come one…..Come All!

 

Stop Commodification of public goods!

____________

COSATU Section77 Notice served at Nedlac on the 11th December 2012

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India just doesn't get it

Justice Malala , Times Live, 06 May 2013

 

It was interesting that President Jacob Zuma found time, in welcoming the investigations into the latest Gupta scandal, to underline that they should not have an "impact on the warm and friendly" relationship between South Africa and India.

In its statement on Friday evening, The Presidency said: "The president has emphasised that the investigation and the manner in which this matter is handled should not be allowed to impact negatively on the warm and friendly historical relations that exist between the governments of the Republic of South Africa and the Republic of India ."

I very nearly did a double take there.

Why? Well, on two previous public occasions, and the latest Guptagate scandal is the third, Zuma and his administration have shown that they do not care a whit about our relationship with India.

Zuma seems to care more about his relationship with the Gupta family than he does about how he is perceived by the government of India.

The latest display of this was in March, when the Brics summit was held in Durban. The Indian Express reported: "The Indian delegation has returned quite upset from South Africa, and for good reason, because this is, perhaps, the first time that the Indian prime minister has gone to a country and failed to hold a separate meeting with the host .

"What probably hurt more was that [Manmohan] Singh was the first among the Brics leaders to reach Durban on March 25, a day before the summit, and still Zuma could not find the time, though he played the proper host to his Chinese and Russian counterparts. In the end, Singh managed to have separate meetings with all Brics leaders except Zuma."

Reports from India indicate that on three occasions Singh was made to wait while Zuma busied himself with other meetings. What galled the Indians was that Zuma did not keep time.

"Not only did the [African leaders'] retreat [which Zuma hosted] start an hour late, it stretched until 7.30pm. Each African leader was to speak for three minutes, but no one kept to time. And the worst violator was Zuma himself who spoke for 25 minutes and even mocked that a 'Zulu minute' is a little longer," the Indian Express wrote.

Now reflect upon Zuma's state visit to India in July 2010. At the time, the Mail & Guardian reported: "Government ministers and business leaders became suspicious of the relationship [between Zuma and the Gupta family] during Zuma's state visit to India, where he was seen spending a disproportionate amount of time on meetings with the Guptas.

"'It was clear that they [the Guptas] had organised things beforehand and took charge of, at least, some parts of his diary," one member of the business delegation that accompanied Zuma [said].

"It is understood that some of the government officials who joined Zuma on the visit were questioned by their Indian counterparts about the Guptas' relationship with the president .

"More than 200 business people joined Zuma on the trip as part of a delegation organised by the Department of Trade and Industry. Some complained that they had only one opportunity to meet Zuma and that this was during a photo opportunity before a function.

"'Several of us,' [said the businessman], were pissed off that we were not included. During the two-day programme, Zuma was kept separate and the only people allowed to be with him were the Guptas and [Kumba Iron Ore president] Lazarus Zim,' said one of the business delegates."

One therefore has to ask this about our "special" relationship with India: is it about South Africa or is it about the Guptas?

It would seem to me that the 2010 trip to India was largely about feathering the nests of the Guptas (and the Zumas, who are deeply intertwined with the family) and not about South Africa.

It seems the Guptas had nothing to gain from India in March, and so Prime Minister Singh was fobbed off in Durban.

The point about Guptagate is that the numerous purported investigations are absolutely and totally useless. They are not independent and will serve only to protect Zuma and his family from scrutiny.

When we allowed the Scorpions to be targeted, harassed and finally destroyed by the ANC under Zuma, we opened ourselves up to this sort of mutually corrupt association - at every level of society.

We are now paying the price for our silence.

In the meantime, the ANC, as it has done for six years now, buries its head in the sand about exactly what sort of leader it has: a man who is in the pockets of private business people like the Guptas.

Cringe, the beloved country.

___________

 

Norman Mampane (Communications Officer)

Congress of South African Trade Unions

110 Jorissen Cnr Simmonds Street

Braamfontein

2017

 

P.O.Box 1019

Johannesburg

2000

South Africa

 

Tel: +27 11 339-4911 or Direct 010 219-1342

Mobile: +27 72 416 3790

E-Mail: mam...@cosatu.org.za