COSATU Media Monitor, 11 March 2010
Mluleki Mntungwa
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Contents
1.1 Employees hold lunch time pickets
1.2 Sadtu plan to clear ‘grey areas’
1.3 Maths specialist post still vacant
2.1 Economic Development: Patel's department must get cracking on huge challenges
2.2 ‘Racist Julius’ faces hate speech charge
2.3 Zille to sue Malema over 'Satanism' jibe
2.4 A voice for journalists. At last
2.5 ANC, SACP can't agree on agenda
2.6 ANC youth wing losing faith in finance minister
2.7 ANC manager given 5-year sentence for killing child
2.8 Winnie Mandela’s Remarks Raise Stir
2.9 Zuma now a lame duck, unable to lead — COPE
2.10 China firm denies Fifa World Cup sweatshop claims
2.11 Sharpeville erupts over Zuma’s wife
1. Workers
1.2 Sadtu plan to clear ‘grey areas’ |
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By BONGANI FUZILE, Daily Dispatch, 11 March 2010THE South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) yesterday accused the Education Department of failing to make time to discuss issues at the province’s district office. Sadtu provincial secretary Fezeka Loliwe on Monday told the Daily Dispatch that they had called for a meeting with the department as they wanted to clear some “grey areas” on what was happening in the department’s headquarters in Zwelitsha. Loliwe said: “This week we’ve tried to secure meetings with the department but because they say they are busy, Monday next week was suggested as the best day for the meeting.” Loliwe said the union wanted to discuss concerns about employees and subject advisers, who are currently doing nothing in the offices because of a court interdict that was served to them last month. |
1.3 Maths specialist post still vacant |
By BONGANI FUZILE, Daily Dispatch, 11 March 2010
THE dismal maths pass rate at Eastern Cape schools has not been helped by the fact that the province has been without a maths specialist subject adviser for the past three years. Teacher unions in the province have called on the Eastern Cape Department of Education to jack up their act after learning that there is no mathematics subject adviser. For the past three years, the department has been struggling to secure the services of such a specialist. South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) said it was one of the factors that had seen the pass rate of the subject plummet. Last year, only 16 198 of the 43 251 pupils who sat for the mathematics paper passed, and in 2008, only 13839 out of 37 069 passed. According to the department’s end of the year results, this added up to a 37 percent pass rate for each year. “In many meetings that we’ve held with the department, not a single word has ever come from them (that) they were struggling to secure services of a mathematics adviser at provincial level. “If told, we could have made some suggestions, that’s our mandate as a union. We want to get involved in the education in this province,” said Sadtu’s provincial secretary, Fezeka Loliwe. National Professional Teachers of South Africa (Naptosa) echoed the same sentiments, urging the department to speed up the process of filling crucial vacant posts. Naptosa’s chief executive officer ) for the Eastern Cape Peter Duminy said there were inexperienced teachers who needed advice from specialist educators. “Those vacancies, not only for mathematics but for other subjects, must be filled immediately. We cannot work like this, not now. There is a bad impact that this is doing to our pupils,” said Duminy. Subject advisers based at the provincial office told the Daily Dispatch that the mathematics post had been vacant for the past three years. One subject adviser, who did not want to be named for fear of reprisal, said since they joined the department in 2007, not a single mathematics adviser had been employed. Another subject adviser said: “We recently changed the education curriculum and mathematics has been divided into different sections and that needs advisers to assist in schools and districts, but that is not happening.” Last year Education Minister Angie Motshekga announced that subject advisers would not develop curriculum any further, but rather focus on the delivery, implementation and moderation of the curriculum. |
1.4 73 mineworkers fired |
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SEVENTY-THREE mineworkers in Mapani outside Musina have been fired. The Syferfontein mineworkers were dismissed yesterday after a dispute over wages with management. The workers had complained that their R1200 monthly wage was illegal in terms of labour conditions in the mining sector. They accused management of violating their conditions of employment. The company mines magnesite , a white stone extracted from a dusty open pit. The workers said they had decided to hold a protest march because their rights were being violated in and out of the mine and they wanted their disputes to be resolved. “We got a notice to march on Tuesday, but while we were marching the police stoppedus,”saidthe spokesperson of the fired workers, Kathutshelo Muthego. The workers marched peacefully and blocked the entrance to the mine, demanding that management adheres to the recommended wages and safety regulations. The workers said their wages were unacceptable and they had been disput ing them for months now. Muthego said they were forced to work for R6,67c an hour instead of the recommended R15,68c, which translates into R2500 a month. Muthego said their safety clothes were also not proper for digging and exposure to dust. “The tattered work suits and safety boots expose us to injuries. Some of us get injured and you will be told to drink water and sleep. “There’s not even medical treatment, you nurse yourself,” Muthego said. “This has been happening for years and we work without leave. We are being forced to work on Sunday and paid ordinary rates,” he said The workers said the conditions at the mine were reminiscent of apartheid times when “mine workers were abused, harassed and rewarded with injuries and a peanuts salary”. “We work for peanuts and the labour department does not care. “We have been reporting our problems but nothing has changed,” Muthego said. Syferfontein group managing director Dane Cresswell refused to comment, saying he was not the spokesperson for the mine. |
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2. South Africa
2.1 Economic
Development: Patel's department must get cracking on huge challenges
By Annabel Bishop, Business Report, 11 March 2010
South Africa's challenges range from food security, national
health care and clean governance to unemployment and education. Many of these
problems were inherited from the previous government 15 years ago, but
significant inroads into resolving them have yet to be made.
The creation of the Department of Economic Development, under Minister Ebrahim
Patel, is the latest government response to addressing the country's
challenges.
Specifically, the departments' focus will be on making economic policy, but its
value would be in enabling a sustainable growth path that broadens the economic
net and absorbs South Africa's high level of unemployable work seekers.
Consequently, the creation of decent work is at its core, both the number of
jobs and the quality of jobs.
The labour absorption rate and composition and sustainability of the growth
path are as important as the rate of economic growth itself; jobless growth
will not meet the ministry's objectives.
In other words, it is not enough just to create jobs in the country. The rate
of job creation needs to exceed both that of the labour force growth rate - the
number of new work seekers entering the labour force - and the number of
individuals losing employment.
The strategic plan is targeted at meeting the needs of a developmental economy
and aims to improve the level of equity, reduce income inequalities, provide
decent work and achieve a balanced employment intensive industrialisation.
The expansion of the production side of the economy is a necessity, both to
bolster the country's level of savings and to create sustainable, good quality
jobs through a balanced growth path, one which is not heavily influenced by the
international environment but is, instead, evenly balanced with, or even led
somewhat by, the supply side of the economy. This will be particularly welcomed
by the markets if it does indeed result in a higher growth path based on a free
market approach.
Many pressing problems are referred to in the minister's strategy. The proof
will be whether the plan can be put into effect.
For one thing, there is a dire need for higher education institutions to relate
their curricula to the needs of the market place. An example that springs to
mind is the overwhelming success of India's Institutes of Technology, which has
been an integral part of India's economic advance.
Patel's department will have both new policy functions and take over those of
other departments, and is to be established in three months. However, to be
successful, to continue the example above, it will need to have the power to
quite rapidly upgrade and alter the offerings by higher education institutions
and make significant inroads into providing free tertiary education to
qualifying candidates, not to mention improve primary and secondary education
as well - all easier said than done.
To finance this, a specific tertiary education development bond springs to
mind, linked also to the beneficiaries' future earnings. Such strategies will
only work if the end result is a substantially broadened economic net and
ramped up economic growth so that additional mid-to-high income taxpayers
meaningfully swell the government's coffers.
Consequently it is both appropriate and necessary for South Africa to have a
broad macrostrategy, to address unemployment, poverty, inequality and a growth
rate that is insufficient to employ its work seekers.
However, the minister needs to make sure he steers the course of his plan
towards free markets, as opposed to away from them, so that the path of lowering
corporate taxes continues once fiscal revenue improves, instead of hiking taxes
Other market friendly approaches are required, from relaxing exchange controls
further with the view to their ultimate abolition, to reducing and eventually
eliminating labour market rigidities to significantly reducing, and if possible
eliminating, administrative red tape.
Without this, the job opportunities that could exist will perish.
The five listed key priorities are to create decent work, implement agrarian
reform to ensure food security, provide universal, affordable education, create
a national health care system, and a comprehensive strategy to fight crime and
corruption and deliver clean governance.
The need for jobs that are sustainable and appropriately paid highlights the
critical improvement needed in appropriate skills in the country.
Land suitable and intended for commercial farming but which is being
inefficiently used, particularly due to changes in ownership with the new
owners lacking the skills, finance and ability, needs to be targeted with
workable solutions implemented in order to promote food security.
The minister's department is also likely to give greater clarity on where the
heady funding for the national health insurance will come from, although the
running of the scheme, once set up, should not come from borrowings as this
would not be sustainable.
Indications are that the funding needed for the ministry's macroeconomic plan
will come from the issuance of development bonds, up to the value of 5 percent
of the public and private retirement funds industry, which is estimated at R1.5
trillion.
The development bonds are expected to be issued in the long end of the maturity
spectrum, which would be a favourable outcome as it would normalise the yield
curve in this period, which has always been very thin and relatively illiquid.
It will also create pricing for state-owned entities to issue at this maturity.
It is unlikely that the reintroduction of prescribed assets for retirement
funds will occur, unless there is insufficient take-up of the development
bonds.
The social responsibility of investing in bonds aimed at fostering an
environment at the macro level for the reduction of poverty and inequality
through job creation and sustainable economic growth is likely to be attractive
enough on its own, along with the shortage of supply in the long end of the
yield curve, to make the absorption of these bonds likely. The planned issuance
of these bonds will be included in the budget.
The question is: how will the funds be spent?
The creation of the department and ministry will significantly swell the ranks
of civil servants and the government's current expenditure. South Africa does
not have a bottomless pit of financing. If the money, which will be relatively
easy to come by, at least initially, given expected attractive yields, is not
well and efficiently spent, the moral attraction of the issuance will be
tarnished.
Wastage from any ensuing corruption will be difficult to make up in later years
as the parastatals also need to issue bonds in the long end of the yield curve,
as mentioned above. Increased gilt issuance to fund the country's rising budget
deficit will crowd out shorter maturities.
The department's focus on promoting policy development, co-ordination and
coherence across all spheres of the government is a mammoth task.
It is envisioned that it will concern all state entities involved in economic
regulation and development financing, as well as interacting with business and
labour.
The minister has a very large task ahead to achieve and it is hoped he will
have every success.
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2.3 Zille to sue Malema over 'Satanism' jibe
By Carien du Plessis and Murray Williams, IOL,
11 March 2010
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2.9 Zuma now a lame duck, unable to lead — COPE |
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WYNDHAM HARTLEY, Business Day, 11 March 2010 |
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CAPE TOWN — President Jacob Zuma was a lame duck and had lost the moral authority to lead the fight against corruption, Congress of the People (COPE) parliamentary leader Mvume Dandala said yesterday in a call on all South Africans to stand up against corruption.
COPE’s call comes in the wake of news of Zuma’s late disclosure of his financial interests to Parliament. Dandala noted a previous failure by Zuma to disclose his financial interests when he was deputy president and an MP in 2003.
He stressed that COPE was not calling for protests along the lines of service-delivery protests but for a conscious, collective decision by the people of SA to rid society of corruption. Only then would the government take the people seriously.
“Corruption is threatening to take SA in the same direction as many other countries on the continent. As the fight for scarce resources intensifies, internecine conflicts will arise and intensify. Social cohesion will be shattered.
“At this juncture in our history it is clear that public investment is being routed into capital projects where bribes and kickbacks are on offer to individuals with the right political alignment and where handsome returns are available to the party itself,” Dandala said. This was causing distortions in the economy as money was diverted to personal enrichment.
Dandala said COPE fully intended to proceed with its vote of no- confidence in Zuma on the floor of the National Assembly and had asked for a date for such a debate.
Most opposition notices of motion in the house are never debated and simply sink to the bottom of the order paper. Dandala said if the no- confidence motion route did not materialise, COPE would use a substantive motion to the house.
The basis of the no-confidence motion was “on account of (Zuma’s) serial infidelities, his broken promises, his loss of moral authority”.
2.10 China firm denies Fifa World Cup sweatshop claims |
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BBC, 11 March 2010
A Chinese company has denied exploiting workers making the mascot for the 2010 football World Cup in South Africa. Fifa, football's world governing body, has suspended the Shanghai firm's contract over accusations its employees worked in sweatshop conditions. The work had been outsourced by a member of South Africa's ruling ANC party, who had won the contract. Unions there criticised the decision to move production to China, saying the jobs should have stayed at home. Global Brands Group (GBG), the licensee for 2010 World Cup merchandise, said on Tuesday it was withdrawing its contract from Shanghai Fashion Plastic Products (SFPPC). GBG said an audit of the company found it failed to meet the standards required of a supplier by allegedly employing under-age workers in poor conditions and paying minimal wages.
"The approval for this factory to manufacture these figurines has been temporarily suspended, affording them the opportunity to put in place corrective actions and measures," GBG said in a statement. But a spokeswoman for SFPPC told the AFP news agency: "Considering China's actual conditions, the environment in our factory, if not the best, is very good indeed." The accusations were "completely made up" and the company was a victim of South African politicking, SFPPC told AFP. "It was only because of the high unemployment now in South Africa. Some of their politicians used our working conditions as an excuse," said the spokeswoman, who asked not to be named. 'Callous' The contract to make the leotard-clad leopard mascot, named Zakumi, was won by an entrepreneur and member of South Africa's ruling party. He then outsourced the work to China, provoking an angry reaction from Cosatu, South Africa's largest trade union. "It is outrageous that a public representative of the ANC, which is committed to policies to create decent work, can take such a callous decision which has deprived South African workers of employment," it said. "Cosatu is adamant that the work should never have been outsourced to China in the first place," it added. The BBC's South East Asia analyst, Andre Vornic, says the dispute has highlighted not only the extent to which China dominates the global production of low-tech merchandise, but, more specifically, the growing anxiety at China's expansion into African markets. |
2.11 Sharpeville erupts over Zuma’s wife
Smanga Kumalo, Sowetan, 11 March 2010
Residents opposed to Makhumalo’s honour
SHARPEVILLE Concerned Residents Association is up in arms over plans to honour President Jacob Zuma’s wife, Sizakele Khumalo, known as MaKhumalo.
The Sedibeng municipality had announced last week that they would honour the First Lady on Human Rights Day – March 21 – in Sharpeville.
Yesterday, Concerned Residents representatives held a closed meeting lasting more than four hours with Gauteng Premier Nomvula Mokonyane regarding the honour and finding solutions to recent service delivery protests.
However, the meeting was said to have achieved little.
But Mokonyane told Sowetan that the meeting came up with solutions – although she would not comment further.
Sedibeng mayor Simon Mofokeng yesterday said he knew nothing about plans to honour MaKhumalo.
“The local municipality never told us that they were going to honour MaKhumalo. We read the story in the Sowetan that she would be honoured on March 21 here in Sharpeville.
Concerned Residents leader Kingslen Boloang said: “We do not know MaKhumalo. Why can’t the municipality honour people like Nyakale Tsholo who lead the march when people were killed in Sharpeville in 1960?”
Boloang vowed that the community would not be part of the commemorations “because Sedibeng and Emfuleni municipalities are using the day to benefit themselves while the people of Sharpeville are suffering”.