COMMENT - The West continuously undermines democracy by installing or promoting neoliberal corporatists or representatives of the old colonial class in disguise, even through the Liberation Movements. That's why they're so enthusiastic about the new leaders of the ANC and ZANU-PF. Donald Trump literally announced the installation of a new President in Venezuela on twitter. For democracy to rule, the people must have their own unbought, uncompromised candidates. Or there has to be direct democracy - bypass the politicians altogether. - MrK
(BLACK OPINION SA) Apartheid spy, Cyril Ramaphosa, must go!
By admin Posted in Featured News Posted on February 14, 2019
By Andile Mngxitama
The nation must thank Cope leader, Mosiuoa “Terror” Lekota, for speaking the truth yesterday at the SONA debate. Throughout history, there has been a lot of speculation about Cyril Ramaphosa being an apartheid agent. Now Lekota has finally spoken out. The three minutes Lekota was on the podium was worth a thousands minutes. Lekota spoke directly when most of the opposition have been subdued since the State of the Nation Address.
For this, Terror Lekota is the undisputed hero of the SONA Debate.
The history of Ramaphosa and white monopoly capital is well documented and he is proud of it. Ramaphosa was raised and taken care of by the criminal Oppenheimer family. This is the family which benefited immensely from apartheid and its disastrous migrant labour system. At one stage, the family owned most of the economy of South Africa. The Oppenheimer family are heirs of the bloody loot of Cecil John Rhodes. They are the owners of the global giant Anglo American.
When student leaders where facing multiple detentions, torture and death in the 1970s, Ramaphosa was being protected and funded by the criminal Oppenheimer family. His schooling was paid for by them. When they were satisfied that he could serve them, they made him start a trade union in their mines with the view of controlling the workers. That’s how National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) was formed.
Ramaphosa was mentored to be a stooge of white monopoly capital. It is therefore not surprising at all that he is also an agent of the apartheid regime. These revelations by Lekota raise too many questions. Since Ramaphosa was close to the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) of Steve Biko, we are left to wonder if he had any hand in the assassinations of the prominent BCM leaders like Abram Onkgopotse Tiro, Mapetla Mohapi, Mthuli ka Shezi and Steve Biko himself.
Ramaphosa was being taken care off by the same people who worked tirelessly to eliminate the BCM. Did he help the apartheid regime destroy the BCM?
There are also questions about how Ramaphosa replaced both Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma from the center of the negotiations process in the 1990s. There is evidence that the removal of the two was instigated by the apartheid regime and white monopoly capital. Putting Ramaphosa as head of the negotiations ensured that the apartheid regime was basically negotiating with itself. This explains the sell-out settlement that is codified in Section 25 of the Constitution which legitimizes land theft. It was a gift from Ramaphosa, the apartheid agent.
South Africa cannot be ruled by someone who is linked to the apartheid regime and white monopoly capital. Ramaphosa is a sell-out.
Black First Land First (BLF) demands the following:
1. Ramaphosa must resign as state President now!
2. If he doesn’t resign, the African National Congress (ANC) must recall him.
3. He must apologize to the nation for collaborating with the enemy during apartheid.
4. A Commission of inquiry into the claims that Ramaphosa was an apartheid agent be set up.
Furthermore, we ask President Jacob Zuma to release his intelligence report on Ramaphosa’s link to the apartheid regime and white monopoly capital.
BLF will make sure Ramaphosa is removed from the Presidency. Already, we can see that every decision he has made since becoming president is calculated to serve white interests. He has already given white monopoly capital the gift of R1.4 trillion under the guise of the Independent Power Producers (IPPs). He has removed and persecuted all the radical economic transformation (RET) leadership core. He is en route to giving the oil discovered recently to whites. Plans are afoot to sell state owned entities to white monopoly capital, starting with Eskom.
The Marikana massacre was not an accident. Ramaphosa operates like an apartheid agent – he doesn’t care for black lives. No serious nation can allow itself to be ruled by agents of its oppressors. Ramaphosa must go!
No related posts.
Labels: ANC, APARTHEID, CYRIL RAMAPHOSA, MOSIUOA TERROR LEKOTA, NICKY OPPENHEIMER, STEVE BIKO
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(BLACK OPINION SA) ‘Hands off President Robert Mugabe’ – BLF
By admin Posted in Featured Politics
Posted on September 8, 2017
BO Staff Writer
Radical black consciousness movement, Black First Land First (BLF), has come out in defence of Zimbabwean president, Robert Mugabe, after African National Congress (ANC) Secretary General, Gwede Mantashe, dismissed Mugabe’s comments about the ANC selling out its people during the 1994 negotiations.
Mugabe has on numerous occasions told his Zanu-PF party supporters that Mandela only negotiated for his freedom from jail and not for the economic emancipation of the majority black people.
Read BLF’s full statement below:
BLF says President Mugabe is correct about South Africa
Black First Land First (BLF) stands with the president of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, in his observation that the South Africa struggle was compromised, firstly by a very poor understanding of the national question.
The ANC in its whole articulation of what the central contradiction in South Africa is, has been wrong. It was wrong from its establishment, it was wrong in Kliptown 1955 and again proven wrong in 1994 with the massive compromise with the settler colonial regime.
As a result of the failure to understand what is the central contradiction in South Africa, the ANC has put black people in a situation where we are a landless majority, a powerless majority, a majority without dignity, freedom and our land. President Mugabe is therefore correct to conclude that it was wrong for the ANC and all its former presidents, including the late O.R. Thambo, late N.R. Mandela, to have conceded so much to the white settler population.
It is nonsensical for Gwede Mantashe to speak back in his neo-liberal response to President Mugabe.
Zimbabweans have their land back through a Chimurenga, led by President Mugabe which has brought real independence to the country. Zimbabwe stands as a beacon of anti-colonialism and anti-imperialism in Africa.
The ANC has failed in the past 23 years to return land to black people. The ANC has failed in the past 23 years to end racism and white supremacy. Only now has President Jacob Zuma of the ANC attempted to chart a different path toward Radical Economic Transformation. We are aware that even he does not have the support the of the full ANC.
That is why in the 2017 ANC Policy Conference the party failed totally to resolve on important question such as:
1. Land expropriation without compensation
2. The fact that the central contradiction remains the power of White Monopoly Capital
3. The ANC fails to endorse the fairly moderate Mining Charter as articulated by the Minster of Mines, Mosebenzi Zwane
BLF is absolutely clear that the ANC has to redeem itself by focusing on addressing the central contradiction in South Africa and stop wasting its time in speaking back to President Mugabe. He deserves our respect and reverence, not stupid tit for tat responses.
BLF says Hands Off President Mugabe. We call upon the faction led by Mantashe and other agents to follow the example of President Zuma and focus on RET, the return of the land and the sharing of the land through the mining charter.
The ANC has no moral right to speak back against President Mugabe. He is, and remains, a hero to the African revolution.
The ANC must still prove itself. Up to now it has sold black people to white settler colonialism.
Land or Death
Izwelethu!
ISSUED BY THE NATIONAL COORDINATING COMMITTEE OF THE BLACK FIRST LAND FIRST MOVEMENT (BLF NCC)
8 September 2017
Black First Land First Email:blackfirstlandfirst@gmail.com
Facebook: Black First Land First
Twitter: @black1stland1st
Website: www.blf.org.za
Zanele Lwana
(Deputy President)
Cell: +27799867225
Lindsay Maasdorp
(National Spokesperson)
Cell: +27 79 915 2957
Brian Tloubatla
(Deputy National Spokesperson)
Cell: +27 82 216 7664
Labels: ANC, GWEDE MANTASHE, LAND REFORM, ROBERT MUGABE
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COMMENT - Oligarchy and globalisation are a problem all over the world, and in few places is it older than South Africa. South Africa and Botswana's diamonds were 90-95% of all the diamonds traded in the world in the 20th century, courtesy of De Beers only. President Zuma of South Africa on oligarchy - MrK
(BLACK OPINION SA) President Jacob Zuma explains white monopoly capital and Western imperialist interference in Africa
By admin Posted in Featured Politics
Posted on November 14, 2017
By BO Staff Writer
South African President, Jacob Zuma sat down with progressive 24 hour news channel, ANN7, to discuss his tenure and views on state matters. In the interview, Zuma said be doesn’t understand why people are still arguing about white monopoly capital, saying that it is a sad reality we cannot ignore. The president also touched on Western imperialism’s longing to maintain political anf economic control in Africa.
On white monopoly capital:
“In so far as white monopoly capital, I think the issue to me is very simple. If
you have a history of South Africa where the majority was deprived of everything – and this is what people don’t like us to say, but it’s a fact, it’s not a manufactured story. We are not mad. We are telling the truth.
This is what, as a freedom fighter, we fought for. We are not saying something we don’t know. They took everything.
The political power, which we now have, and the economic power, the land, everything.
When we say there is a monopoly, let us take the mines.
Companies which dominate in the mines are not many. [Companies] who really are benefiting are very few.
Whether you go to gold, diamonds, platinum, manganese or whatever, you will find the same companies in charge. That means they are dominating. That means
they are monopolizing the economy. They are therefore monopolies. And, they are not black. The companies are not black.
You’ve got companies today that are basically white. They start from the biggest commodities to the broom. Their names are written there. They are monopolizing every space of the economy, it’s a fact. I don’t know why they shouldn’t be called by what they practise. I don’t know why there is a debate in fact, because there is a monopoly capital and in South Africa it is white. In all other countries there are monopolies, it doesn’t have colour as such. But here, because of our history, it does have a colour, it is white.
If you look at the land, stretches of land which was land that belonged to the majority, that was changed. It is now the minority which dominates. And that’s why we are saying these are monopolies. It’s not an insult it’s just explaining the position of the economy. Who is owning bigger, Who is poor.”
On Western imperialist interference:
“Yes, there are some foreign countries who look at some leaders in Africa as their enemy and I’m one of those. It is an accepted thing, or a known thing that if they want to undermine a country, they use the citizens of those countries. In other words, they buy them, they recruit them, they use them to undertake their own. They would also want to choose the people to lead the country who might agree to their policies or people they might actually control. That is a general thing in Africa, it’s not a secret.
Former colonial countries want to influence former colonies in one form or the other, for their own interest. You know for quite a few decades there used to be coup d’état’s in Africa and they were engineered by people from outside. In other words to change governments so that they put people who will support them. I don’t think South Africa will be immune from such a thing. It’s a reality. Leaving aside what I know, or what we know, just as a general kind of practise that has plagued Africa for a long time.
At times, even the issue of elections, how people influence elections in one form or the other, how those people have preference in terms of individuals. That’s what happens. I don’t think you could say South Africa is not affected by that. I think in South Africa what has been a difficulty to many of them is that the ANC has been too strong. It’s an old organisation. In fact some of them have been wishing for the ANC to disappear. But the ANC has been very strong. I think they have been trying every method to weaken the ANC. To create disagreements. To create friction within the ANC. To influence factions etc. There are forces which are always there trying to influence confusion and misleading people so that they can have things in their own way. So that they can be satisfied that they are in control. That one is a reality we cannot ru away from.”
Labels: ANC, APARTHEID, JACOB ZUMA, MONOPOLIES, OLIGARCHIES
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COMMENT - In this hilarious exchange, former
Southafrican Finance Minister Trevor Manuel takes issue with the use of the term
White Monopoly Capital, which he perhaps even correctly ascribes to PR people working on behalf of the Guptas. This is ironic, because right after stepping down as Finance Minister, Trevor Manuel
stepped up to join the Rothschild Group, the real and ultimately only monopolists in South Africa.
The Rothschild barons funded Cecil Rhodes, Randolph Churchill, Disraeli, and their Anglo-American De Beers dominates the mining sector and economy. See posts just below. And yet
even Julius Malema and Andile Mngxitama won't mention their name, and instead use the euphemism 'White Monopoly Capital'. That's how powerful they are. - MrK
(DAILY MAVERICK SA) Fikile, do you remember the tears you shed over the Guptas?
11 June 2017 14:39 (South Africa)
Trevor Manuel
09 Jun 2017 10:24
I have tried, unsuccessfully, to understand the purpose of the article that was first published in your name in the Daily Maverick. You clearly did not understand what I said in the recent panel discussion about Nelson Mandela’s economic legacy.
Dear Fikile,
The drafters of your letter to me try, unsuccessfully, to weave a story that drifts from Andre Odendaal, Moeletsi Mbeki, Anton Lembede and Martin Luther King, to lies about our household income. The only result is absolute confusion.
I stand by what I said at the Nelson Mandela Foundation: the term "White Monopoly Capital" was conjured up by Bell Pottinger on behalf of the Guptas, and filtered into the political discourse to serve their agenda. Since then I have become aware of the specificity of the facts. As Ranjeni Munusamy reminds us, the term was developed by Bell Pottinger's Victoria Geoghegan, who in an email to Duduzane Zuma styled "White Monopoly Capital" as a narrative and filtered it into the discourse via Collen Maine, Andile Mngxitama and Mzwanele Manyi.
The idea of 'White Monopoly Capital' (WMC) is a ruse to draw attention away from our pressing policy priorities. It is for this reason that I asked what the alternative is:
ADVERTISING
inRead invented by Teads
"Is it Indian Monopoly Capture out of Saxonwold?”
In case you haven’t understood my initial statement, this is a specific reference to the wheeling and dealing of the Guptas. It goes without saying that the scandalous conduct of this particular family must be separated from the significant contributions to the liberation struggle of many thousands of people of Indian origin.
To recast for your benefit, WMC is an instrument of propaganda that draws attention to one issue in a manner that ignores the realities confronting us. I must assume from your implacable belief in its existence that you have consumed the idea - hook, line and sinker.
I agree with the views of the SACP, as expressed in their recent statement following the Central Committee meeting of 2-4 June, that one of the “features of the Gupta parasitic-patronage network” is “a diversionary populist ideological platform”. Amongst other insightful points the SACP makes, which you would do well to read carefully, it says:
“In the face of growing public exposure of their misdeeds, there have been a number of ideological interventions from the parasitic-patronage faction."
If you also took the trouble to read the Economics Resolutions of each ANC Conference since the 49th in 1994, you will not find the language of 'White Monopoly Capital' in any of them. This is because WMC is not part of the lexicon of terms used in ANC policy. It was conjured up as a red herring to obscure the misdeeds of the Guptas and those who benefit from their patronage network.
Words are important, and in the political economy terms such as monopoly have a distinct meaning. The tasks at hand remain enormous. I would welcome a rational policy discussion with you but that depends on your getting facts right. To use terms such as “neoliberal sleeper” to describe me obfuscates the real issues. Extensive research, including by international economists, has established that South Africa has the most redistributive income tax system in the world, and that its social expenditure is largely progressive. But our ongoing challenge is of course economic growth to sustain this, the creation of jobs to improve the standards of living for our people, and the dramatic reduction of inequality by improving public education, and changing the apartheid landscape of our cities.
The National Development Plan placed its central focus on how to eliminate poverty and reduce inequality. These remain cornerstone challenges. They will not disappear simply because some new nefarious slogan has been dreamt up by Bell Pottinger and the Guptas. Our problem is that too many people are left behind, excluded from access to good quality education, better quality public service and an investment in skills. Of course, 23 years on, the exclusion of so many still bears all of the dimensions of race, class, gender and geography. These challenges are not wished away; we need action, measurement and communication with all South Africans.
You would recall that the ANC’s 53rd national conference in 2012 adopted the National Development Plan as a policy of the governing party. The NDP also makes a series of recommendations about policing to deal with the realities of poverty, and I would advise you to scrupulously examine these. Unfortunately, it is as though the NDP has been abandoned as people who occupy senior positions of State appear more focused on demonstrating that it is their turn to eat.
It is odd, Fikile, that a mere five years ago you described President Zuma as a “politically bankrupt” leader who married “every week”. Odd, because I have a clear memory of an incident that may be at the heart of why you have responded to me in the manner you have. That memory goes back to an ANC NEC meeting in August 2011. There, the Fikile Mbalula we once knew wept as he spoke. He explained he'd been called to Saxonwold by the Guptas in May 2009 and was told that he was being promoted from the position of Deputy Minister of Police to Minister of Sport. A few days later the President confirmed this change. The weeping was about the fact that he, Fikile, was happy that he'd made it into Cabinet but that it was wrong to have learnt this from Atul Gupta. That weeping was then, and this is now. Perhaps there are still a few debts to be called in by Saxonwold.
On the questions of service to our country and people, I will leave history to judge my contribution.
Regards,
Trevor DM
Labels: ANC, FIKILE MBALULA, MONOPOLIES, NEOCOLONIALISM, NEOLIBERALISM, ROTHSCHILD GROUP, TREVOR MANUEL, WHITE MONOPOLY CAPITAL
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COMMENT - The ANC is finally moving on landreform. Samadoda Fikeni: “
The pressure was already there, but it had an urban orientation or twist to it, whereas in Zimbabwe it was with the farmers and the government was involved. “So we should dispel the myth that people were waiting for some law somewhere to distribute land,” he said."
Undictated / March 8, 2016
ANC warned: Put land reform on top of agenda – or face consequences from voters
By Naledi Shange, News24
Johannesburg –
The ANC must implement its land reform policies quickly or they will be overtaken by opposition parties. This was the stern warning given to the ruling party by political analyst Somadoda Fikeni, of the University of South Africa, as he reminded the ANC of their promise to implement radical economic transformation.
Supporters of South Africa's ruling ANC party cheer as South Africa's President and party leader Jacob Zuma (not seen) arrives for the launch of the party's election manifesto at the Mbombela stadium in Nelspruit, January 11, 2014.
REUTERS/Ihsaan Haffejee (SOUTH AFRICA - Tags: POLITICS ELECTIONS)
File photo: Supporters of South Africa’s ruling ANC party cheer as South
Africa’s President and party leader Jacob Zuma (not seen) arrives for the launch of the party’s election manifesto at the Mbombela stadium in Nelspruit, January 11, 2014. REUTERS/Ihsaan Haffejee
“If the ruling party doesn’t move fast, in a self-automated process, these things will happen; other contesting political parties will amplify them even if they are not in government in a manner that they simply take the same programmes and hone them and articulate them in the simplest form, in the crudest form, so that everybody will simply say ‘here is the message’,” Fikeni said.
“So there is a sense of urgency in the point of government.”
He was speaking at a round-table discussion held at the ANC’s Luthuli House headquarters in Johannesburg.
Read also: Anthea Jeffery: Creeping land nationalisation no poverty solution
Revolution in danger
The meeting was attended by Rural Development and Land Reform Minister Gugile Nkwinti, ANC political education sub-committee chairperson Nathi Mthethwa, and former deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe, in his capacity of head of the ANC’s political school.
Mthethwa echoed Fikeni’s sentiments.
“If we do not do what we say we should do… indeed our revolution will be in danger,” he said. Nkwinti said one of the things that had caused delays in the implementation of land claims and redistribution was the burden of proof that lay with the land claimants.
“We have to look at the law itself. Does it fairly represent the acquisition of the law of that land?”
He said this would be resolved through new laws that would balance the scales against both – those who currently occupy the land and those who claim to have previously owned it.
Read also: House of Parly passes ‘no consent’ Land Reform – ANC lags targeted repatriation
Sensitive issue
Nkwinti admitted that there had been delays in the process of land reform, saying government had also made some mistakes, but that they were working to fix this.
He described the issue of land as a “sensitive one”.
Fikeni stressed that the issue of land grabs in South Africa was nothing new. He claimed that, while many feared that South Africa would be like Zimbabwe if it agreed to land grabs, South Africa had seen land grabs in the early 1990s, before Zimbabwe.
“The pressure was already there, but it had an urban orientation or twist to it, whereas in Zimbabwe it was with the farmers and the government was involved.
“So we should dispel the myth that people were waiting for some law somewhere to distribute land,” he said – News24
Source: http://www.news24.com/Elections/News/revolution-in-danger-if-anc-doesnt-implement-land-reform-soon-20160307
Alec Hogg Alec Hogg March 8, 2016 | ANC, Apartheid, expropriation, featured, Gugile Nkwinti, Jacob Zuma, Kgalema Motlanthe, land reform, Nathi Mthethwa, Nelson Mandela, Slider, Somadoda Fikeni, South Africa, University of South Africa, Zimbabwe
COMMENT FROM MRK: This is the preface Biznews insisted on adding in to this article. It is clear that the writer fears losing control of the narrative on landreform, and therefore tries to insert his own opinion to redirect it. It does not matter that land was stolen on the basis of race, or 'who is more South African', which is clearly where he wants to derail the discussion to. The fact is that right up to the end of Apartheid, African and non-White people were thrown off their land. Even more important is that 90% of the population is locked out of owning land in 87% of the country. Saying that 13% of the land that is in State, not Traditional, hands is 'vast' and therefore there is no problem is sanctimonious, deceptive, and an example of ostrich politics that ultimately led to the Fast Track landredistribution program in Zimbabwe. Which was far less violent or 'chaotic' than was portrayed in the media. Nor did it redistribute land to 'friends and cronies of Mugabe', it redistributed land to hundreds of thousands of families, not just a few thousand well connected individuals. This is what the editor/writer Alec Hogg felt he needed to add:
DNA tests prove human beings are 99.9% identical. So I’m in RW Johnson’s camp when he says there is no such thing as race. Differences which exist between members of our species stem from environment and culture – not from how we are wired. Yet those who would profit from it, persist in highlighting race as a differentiator, which is just sad. “Land reform” has become another convenient political football. With heightened hypocrisy, too. Massive tracts of un-utilised lands controlled by traditional leaders are not up for “reform”. But, like Zimbabwe, all white farms are, even if they happened to have legally acquired and paid for decades before. The self-righteous justification is that at somewhere in the past, ancestors of today’s farmers “stole” the land from the ancestors of others. And that date of the theft keeps shifting. President Jacob Zuma says the infamous 1913 Lands Act can no longer be used as the starting point. Because, he argued this week, very little land changed hands after it – so he simply backdates it to some undetermined date in the 1800s.
South Africa’s first national census was done in 1904 at which time the country’s entire population was 5.2m (of whom just over a million were whites – 21.6%). As there are now ten times more of us (whites – 8.8%), it’s hard to conceptualise this huge country with so few people. Back then the vast plains were occupied by wild animals which migrated freely. Very little land was “owned” much less farmed in the modern sense. There has been ample time since the dawn of SA’s democracy to highlight where abuses occurred. Yet politicians and those they listen to persist in pounding a hypocritical land distribution drum which only serves to feed fear and greed. What a pity they use this as a tool to highlight the 0.1% where people differ. Rather than following the example of the iconic Nelson Mandela who focused on the 99.9% to forge a nation. – Alec Hogg
Labels: ANC, GUGILE NKWINTI, JACOB ZUMA, LAND REFORM, SAMADODA FIKENI
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(EYE WITNESS NEWS SA) ‘1913 cut-off date for land claims should be pushed back’
Jacob Zuma says while the majority of people were formally dispossessed, greater losses were suffered.
President Jacob Zuma in response to the debate on the State of the Nation Address, National Assembly, Cape Town. Picture: GCIS.
Gaye Davis | about 19 hours ago
JOHANNESBURG - President Jacob Zuma says he believes the 1913 cut-off date for land claims should be pushed back.
Zuma was addressing the National House of Traditional Leaders’ annual sitting in Parliament earlier today. He told the gathering that while the majority of the country’s people were formally dispossessed by the 1913 Land Act, greater losses were suffered during the 1800s.
“I believe as a son of a black man, being black, that we need to shift that cut-off date. But you need to find a reasonable way of addressing the issue within the Constitution.”
He says lack of access to land is the basis for the poverty, unemployment and inequality endured by mostly black people today.
President Zuma has also criticised land reform legislation that his own party brought to Parliament and that he signed into law.
Deviating from his prepared text, Zuma addressed the country’s traditional leaders directly.
“The very law that we have today to claim is lopsided against the black people. It’s very difficult for you to prove that this land belonged to your ancestors and very easy for the landowner to say you can’t have the land. That’s how the law is.”
Zuma signed the restitution of Land Rights Amendment Act into law in 2014.
He says he believes the 1913 cut-off date for land claims should be made earlier, saying the bulk of the dispossession of the black majority took place in the 19th century.
His speech will be debated by traditional leaders in Gauteng on 22 March.
(Edited by Winnie Theletsane)
Labels: ANC, JACOB ZUMA, LAND REFORM
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COMMENT - This is a momentous day. The EFF in South Africa organized a huge march of an estimated 50,000 people, painting seas of Chavez red berets and clothes, at South Africa's most powerful financial institutions, the Reserve Bank, the Chamber of the Mines, and the Johannesburg Stock Exchange or JSE. They met with the CEO of the JSE, and made the following demands:
To the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, we demand the following:
1. All companies in the JSE should move towards socialization of their ownership, meaning that they should give real and meaningful shares to their employees, who will in turn receive dividends at the end of each financial year. A minimum of 51% of all JSE companies should be owned and controlled by workers. This is different from the BEE schemes which empower fewer individuals.
2. All companies represented in the JSE must introduce a minimum wage of R4500 for all their workers, and taking into consideration the sectoral minimum wages contained in the EFF Elections Manifesto, which are: Mineworkers: R12 500 per month, Farm workers: R5000 per month, Manufacturing workers: R6500, Retail Workers (Cashiers and Retail Store Assistants): R5000, Builders: R7000, Petrol Attendants: R5000, Cleaners: R4500, Domestic Workers: R4500, Private Security Guards: R7500, Full time Waiters and Waitresses: R4500
3. All companies in the JSE should ban labour brokers, and permanently employ their workers with proper medical aid and retirement benefits.
4. All JSE companies and all companies in South Africa should implement the principle of equal work for equal pay for all workers irrespective of race, class and background.
5. All companies and corporations that have majority of its businesses in South Africa should have the primary listing in the JSE and their Head Offices in South Africa.
6. All companies in the JSE must procure the upstream and downstream goods and services from township and rural based economic role players owned by historically disadvantaged individuals.
7. All the retail stores in the JSE should source a minimum of 70% of their goods and services from South African producers, particularly food, confectionery, beverages, textile, leather, furniture, plastic, and many other basic products that are traded in South Africa.
8. Urgent action plans and programmes from all companies and corporations in the JSE on how to increase and sustain the labour-absorptive capacity of their companies. Thoroughly drafted human resources, skills transfer, and training and education provision with sustainable care programmes should accompany this.
9. Each and every company in the JSE should adopt a minimum of 5 schools in townships and rural areas and make that each adopted school has access to quality services, including computer labs, laboratories, libraries and access to high speed internet.
10. Each and every listed company with the total turnover of R1 billion and above should adopt one of the Technical, Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Colleges and assist with all the basic necessities of a TVET college.
11. Each and every company in the JSE should adopt a minimum of 100 students and assist with their higher education and training programmes and bursaries from registration, tuition, residence, food, books, and transport money for their adopted students.
12. All companies in the JSE should make massive investments in all parts of South Africa with the aim of decentralizing economic activities and industrial programmes to all parts of the country.
13. Urgent action plans on how to decentralize South Africa’s economic development from the existing centers of economic development to other parts of the country.
14. Urgent development and implementation of Corporate Social Investment Plans, which will bring real value and benefits to communities where business operations happen.
15. All JSE companies should have all their trading bank accounts with South African banks and should be willing to be subjected to scrutiny on illicit financial flows, transfer pricing and profit shifting.
16. End to expatriation of profits to developed countries, and mandate all companies and corporations to declare publicly transactions between subsidiaries in details for the tax authorities to access necessary information to collect maximum tax due to public purse.
17. All JSE companies should commit to usage of South African based professional services, such as those for auditing, accounting, legal, marketing and all other basic services.
Today's march:
(NEWS24 SA) The Great EFF Mass Protest March
Chris Kanyane
By Chris Kanyane
Tuesday, October 27, 2015
We have seen the jihad launched by university students across the country last week. And today, this Tuesday, with EFF mass protest action across Gauteng we witnessed something that is even staggering in terms of sheer appeal, high level organizing that made the mass protest march very peaceful.
The City of Johannesburg was swimming under the blockbuster red sea of EFF juggernaut supernova protest march. The protest march in terms of its reach, depth, creativity and scope was unprecedented. The atmosphere was livid.
It was a 16 kilometres long walk of raw passion.
One lady who participated in the march expressed her personal exuberance as follows:
“I was just out there in the red sea of thousands and thousands of people, holding hands with strangers. What a sensation I felt! I felt like I belonged. I was so excited – so inspired. A young guy whispered in my ears “this is history, this is history”. I smiled and wiped my face with a comfort cloth. I just wanted to become part of something beautiful”.
photo eff
EFF is an explosive big tent protest movement that has surely energised people on the grassroots. It encapsulates the raw passions of grassroots communities from all age groups but on the main it is powered by youthful energy and dynamism. Members and supporters are passionate, emotive in their participation. But there are not from Mars – these are simple ordinary folks, Jabulani, Sipho, Themba, Mpho, Tebogo, embracing a cause that they believe in.
There has been a false theory that has clouded our view and the surging of the EFF. We base the premise of our analysis of the EFF on the charisma of Julius Malema as the leader. But it seems every person involved with EFF brings some spark of charisma. The charisma seems to be evenly spread across the members and the supporters. And when they gather there is a national sensation.
The movement has no baggage and no cronyism. That makes it exciting for every person to participate freely. Passion and exuberance defines participations. Within those passions are aspirations and hopes.
The grand meeting place for the EFF protest march was central Johannesburg – the Mary Fitzgerald Square , the cosmopolitan cultural mecca of South Africa. The Square is thus named after Mary Fitzgerald. A woman considered to be the first trade unionist in the country.
Just a brief overview bio of Mary Fitzgerald so as to contextualise the great EFF march. In 1912 and 1913 with a burst of enthusiasm Mary Fitzgerald led arguably the first major protest march in South Africa – leading the miners in front.
With the miners increasingly organised through her efforts there was a need for a communication. Mary Fitzgerald founded and edited the radical publication known as The Voice of Labour. She used the publication as a vehicle for confronting capitalism as expressed through financial institutions.
Mary Fitzgerald further organised burial societies for the Black miners who were dying in large numbers due to poor working conditions underground. The workers were working under appalling conditions, with mine accidents and deaths ever accumulating.
The EFF mass protest march included in its key demands freed education from crèche to university. That is the currency of the time that has caught the national conversation since last week.
Early in the morning people across Gauteng, from townships such as Soshanguve, Mamelodi, Soweto and so on started self organising – sporadic small groups coalescing on street corners waiting for the transport that they organised and paid from their pockets. This notwithstanding that majority are poor and live in conditions that should not exist in the 21st century.
By about time going to noon tens of thousands of people were on the move, flooding the streets in central Johannesburg- self organising themselves.
Today some people tend to consider mass marches, sit-ins, demonstrations as scary, unruly and out of fashion, so mass protests on the scale of EFF should be denounced. I invite those who suffer this fixation to realise that genuine change is made from bottom up – people feeling the pain expressing it in its raw form.
We can consider what was achieved last week by #FeesMustFall movement. If there was no such protest march to Parliament and the Union Buildings students could not have forced the hands of the authorities for 0% increase in university fees in 2016. Through sheer swarm intelligence the students outfought and outbeat the authorities and emerged victorious.
Who can forget what happened in Cape Town? The swarm intelligence that went into the conception, planning and execution and ultimate storming of Parliament; the thoughtful, meticulous reading of the police movements by students and then launching a push: outsmarting, outflanking the armoured police and soon within a few minutes they were knocking on the doors of the National Assembly. It was a victory for them.
Today’s bad economic conditions (with the growing ranks of the poor) are undermining the very idea of progress and prosperity.
A sense of history demands us moving away from being fiction makers and start addressing in a sober – sobering practical reality, the worsening conditions of people on the ground – the masses are steeped in grim lives, trapped by poverty and depression.
As a nation we tend to equate countless promises with achievement. After piles of promises made we go into a spree of premature celebration, as if just by making those promises achievement is made. And that is where we are with persistent waves of uprisings, at the ward level, community level, and national level.
A country, like a person, cannot leave on luck perpetually. Luck and chance can only carry a person or a nation so far. As of now we have exhausted our stock of luck.
Labels: ANC, CHAMBER OF MINES, EFF, JULIUS MALEMA, NEOLIBERALISM
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(IOL SA) Diamond scandal hits De Beers
COMMENT - De Beers and Beny Steinmetz are colluding to steal South African diamonds, through Beny Steinmetz' Ascot Diamonds (Pty) Ltd. This is where the money is going that should be diversifying the South African economy, and eliminate poverty.
Diamond scandal hits De Beers
- Crime & Courts | IOL News
Independent Newspapers Online
Johannesburg - A senior government diamond valuator in Joburg has accused his bosses of blocking his investigation into diamond giant De Beers – and then firing him to shut him up.
Conrad Benn, the country’s first black diamond valuator, has launched an urgent application in the high court in Joburg to challenge the South African Diamond and Precious Metals Regulator’s decision to suspend him in April last year and fire him last month.
Under section 74 of the Diamond Act, De Beers is exempt from getting permission to sell its diamonds overseas – if it can show that for any of its sales exceeding R5 billion, at least 40 percent of it benefited local companies.
Benn said that
instead of a total of 11 local companies benefiting, a single off-shore company received the lion’s share.
He has submitted an affidavit from one of
De Beers’ other sight-holders, Israeli businessman Erez Daleyot, that De Beers and the Swiss-based, Israeli-owned Steinmetz Group “are working in collusion with (Levy) Rapoo (the chief executive of the diamond regulator) and stealing from the nation of South Africa”.
Rapoo asked Benn to verify the claim. Benn found in November 2013 that De Beers was not complying with the act.
“Of the 40 percent of the gross value of the production cycle to beneficiaries in South Africa, 35 percent was sold to one customer, being Ascot Diamonds (Pty) Ltd. Ascot Diamonds is part of a group of companies owned by a major worldwide diamond entrepreneur, Beny Steinmetz.
“I analysed the 35 percent sold to Ascot Diamonds and noted that it consisted of purchases of ordinary usual diamonds as well as a substantial portion of what is known as ‘exceptional stones’.
“These can be described as large diamonds of good colour and clarity and are the best of any production cycle. They are the cream of the crop,” Benn said.
He said his findings made him uncomfortable and he had made countless efforts to raise it with the relevant authorities in De Beers.
He said that instead of resolving the matter, De Beers wrote a letter to Rapoo accusing Benn of leaking confidential corporate information to a third party.
The regulator then made an “Anton Piller” application, using information given to it by De Beers, said Benn, allowing local law firm ENS Forensics to search Benn’s house and seize his laptop.
Benn was suspended before facing a disciplinary hearing chaired by advocate GJ Fourie, who, Benn told the court, had been appointed by ENS Forensics. Fourie fired him last month.
In his papers, Benn remains adamant that the motive of the regulator was to “get rid of him” instead of probing allegations of wrongdoing by De Beers.
He was the regulator’s senior manager in the valuation department.
Benn worked for De Beers in Kimberley after matriculating at St Patrick’s College in that city. He worked there until 1998 when he joined the regulator, leaving in 2003 to join a private diamond mining company.
He returned to the regulator in 2008 and was later appointed senior manager.
Benn has asked the high court to stop the disciplinary proceedings until his new counsel had familiarised himself with the allegations.
He is adamant that the process has been launched “because I had uncovered the skewed allocation of exceptional stones. The purpose of getting rid of me is to stifle my investigation,” he said.
baldwin.ndaba@inl.co.za
The Star
Labels: ANC, BENY STEINMETZ GROUP RESOURCES, CORRUPTION, DEBEERS, DIAMONDS, LEVY RAPOO
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(MnG SA) ANCYL warns of Zim-style land invasions in South Africa
(MnG SA) ANCYL warns of Zim-style land invasions in South Africa
06 Jun 2012 06:07 Nickolaus Bauer
Farm invasions are "inevitable" should white South Africans not voluntarily hand over land to the government, says the ANC Youth League. Deputy youth league president Ronald Lamola. (Gallo)
“If they don’t want to see angry black youths flooding their farms they must come to the party. Whites must volunteer some of the land and mines they own. They can’t only be compelled to do so through legislation,” deputy youth league president Ronald Lamola said on Tuesday, calling for changes to the Constitution to allow the state to appropriate land.
Lamola was speaking at the end of a youth league policy workshop held in preparation for the ANC policy conference later this month.
He drew comparisons with Zimbabwe, referring to the occupation of land there at the turn of the century, when predominantly white-owned farms were forcibly taken by ruling party-backed militias. The largely ungoverned process descended into violence and saw farm owners aggressively removed from their land.
While the league is not explicitly calling for the occupation of privately owned land, Lamola said if changes to the current state of land reform were not made soon, it would be out of the league’s hands if property were to be forcibly taken.
Society is angry
“It looks like it’s becoming inevitable. Society is angry. If it happens, it will be their [white South Africans] fault. They are not coming to the party,” he said.
As part of its calls to change government’s approach to land reform, the league is calling on wholesale changes to the sections of the Constitution governing land reform.
“We must be unapologetic about this. We need to change sections of the Constitution to bring about the change we need,” Lamola said.
Lamola said current land owners should be involved in a skills transfer process so that emerging farmers are mentored by those surrendering land.
He said this will be for the “greater good” of South Africa as their current status can’t be “safely guaranteed”.
“We are not talking about a partnership; the state must be the dominant player in terms of how land is used. But white South Africans must continue to participate, they remain relevant to this process and will continue to do so,” Lamola added.
We want decisive leadership
With drastic land reform in mind, Lamola said the league would be seeking to elect leaders at the ANC’s upcoming elective conference in December, who won’t be “scared to implement unpopular policies”.
“We want decisive leadership, ones that will give us direction and think behind the tribes they come from and beyond their regions, who realise they lead a nation,” he said.
However, Lamola said the league would only be announcing its preferred candidate once the leadership debate is formally opened by the ANC in October.
Section 25 of the Constitution says property may be expropriated subject to compensation as “agreed to by those affected or decided or approved by a court”.
The compensation should be “equitable, reflecting an equitable balance between the public interest and the interests of those affected”.
Redistribution targets
The department of land reform and rural development says it is in the process of producing a green paper on land redistribution to tackle the matter of further land expropriation.
There is, however, no indication yet about what the green paper will propose.
In his 2012 budget vote speech, Rural Development and Land Reform Minister Gugile Nkwinti indicated government had only achieved just over a quarter of its target to redistribute 30% of South Africa’s agricultural land by 2014.
Nkwinti’s department has also set up a joint task team with the department of public works to work on apparent distortions in prices that government pays for land.
He said farmers are charging government above market value rates, and proposed the establishment of a land-valuer general to deal with the value of land.
As of yet, the ANC has not produced a document that will solely deal with land reform, but said one will be released at the upcoming policy conference.
‘Deep trouble’
However, both ANC and government have agreed that the willing buyer, willing seller principle as enshrined in the Constitution has not worked.
Professor Ben Cousins, the chairperson of poverty, land and agrarian studies at the National Research Foundation, said the land reform process is in “deep trouble” in South Africa.
“We had rather unrealistic ambitions in the early years of our democracy. Quick resolutions to these issues were never going to happen, so we have to be a bit more sensitive to the challenges we face when it comes to land reform,” Cousins told the Mail & Guardian.
Cousins said there is no “quick fix” for the current issues surrounding land reform, be it a change to the Constitution or otherwise.
“To see these matters resolved will take a lot of work. The government has to become a more effective player in the land reform process by buying, negotiating prices and managing the process,” Cousins said. Labels: ANC, ANC YOUTH LEAGUE, BEN COUSINS, LAND REFORM
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Nelson Mandela leaves US$4m estate to family, staff and ANC
By Reuters
Mon 03 Feb. 2014, 16:10 CAT
COMMENT - At some level I understand that Presidents will have more money than most, and that $4 million is really not that much money nowadays, even frugal. However, you can't shake the feeling that this money was accumulated because President Mandela refused to take back the mines and the land, which would have economically empowered all South Africans. - MrK
Nelson Mandela left his roughly $4.1-million estate to his wife Graca Machel, family members, staff, schools and the ANC, according to a summary of his will released Monday.
Two months after the death of the 95-year-old South African statesman, lawyers said wife Graca was likely to waive her right to half the estate, opting instead to receive four properties in Mozambique and other assets.
Royalties from his books and other projects, as well as his homes in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Qunu and Mthatha were left to a family trust.
The home in Houghton, Johannesburg where Mandela died on December 5 will be used by the family of his deceased son Makgatho.
"It is my wish that it should also serve as a place of gathering of the Mandela family in order to maintain its unity long after my death," the former statesman wrote.
Mandela's children each received $300,000 in loans during his lifetime and will have that debt scrapped if it has not been repaid.
The will was first written in 2004 and last amended in 2008.
Even before his death, Mandela's children and grandchildren frequently clashed over who leads the family and who should benefit from his investments.
Several have already put the Mandela brand behind commercial projects including wine, clothing, artwork, a social network and a reality television show.
Executor Dikgang Moseneke, the deputy head of South Africa's Constitutional Court, said the reading of the will to the family had been "charged with emotion" but no one had yet contested it.
Mandela's other bequeathments reflected a life in politics and championing education.
Mandela gave around $4,500 each to members of staff, including long-time personal aide Zelda la Grange.
The will also provided around $9,000 each for Wits and Fort Hare universities, and the same amount to three other schools.
The African National Congress, which Mandela led to victory in the first democratic elections in 1994, could receive between 10 and 30 percent of his royalties.
The cash will be used specifically to promote "policies and principles of reconciliation amongst the people of South Africa."
Family feud
It is unclear if the will can prevent family battles over who controls the Mandela name, which have seen family remains exhumed and reinterred and exhumed and reinterred again.
Eldest daughter Makaziwe reportedly had the locks changed on Mandela's rural home after his death to exclude his eldest grandson Mandla, the head of Mandela's clan.
Makaziwe and Mandla both lay claim to lead the family following the death of the anti-apartheid hero in December.
Makaziwe is backed by his second wife Winnie and Mandla has the support for the royal family of his tribe.
Three executors will now be tasked with winding up the estate and carrying out Mandela's wishes.
They are George Bizos, who represented Mandela at the trial that jailed him for 27 years; Moseneke, the deputy head of the country's Constitutional Court who spent years with the icon imprisoned on Robben Island; and Themba Sangoni the head judge in Mandela's birth province the Eastern Cape
Mandela became South Africa's first black president after the first all-race elections in 1994 and his politics of forgiveness and reconciliation made him a global peace icon.
He died December 5 and was buried 10 days later in his rural boyhood home of Qunu
Labels: ANC, CORRUPTION, NELSON MANDELA
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Nelson Mandela leaves US$4m estate to family, staff and ANC
By Reuters
Mon 03 Feb. 2014, 16:10 CAT
COMMENT - At some level I understand that Presidents will have more money than most, and that $4 million is really not that much money nowadays, even frugal. However, you can't shake the feeling that this money was accumulated because President Mandela refused to take back the mines and the land, which would have economically empowered all South Africans. - MrK
Nelson Mandela left his roughly $4.1-million estate to his wife Graca Machel, family members, staff, schools and the ANC, according to a summary of his will released Monday.
Two months after the death of the 95-year-old South African statesman, lawyers said wife Graca was likely to waive her right to half the estate, opting instead to receive four properties in Mozambique and other assets.
Royalties from his books and other projects, as well as his homes in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Qunu and Mthatha were left to a family trust.
The home in Houghton, Johannesburg where Mandela died on December 5 will be used by the family of his deceased son Makgatho.
"It is my wish that it should also serve as a place of gathering of the Mandela family in order to maintain its unity long after my death," the former statesman wrote.
Mandela's children each received $300,000 in loans during his lifetime and will have that debt scrapped if it has not been repaid.
The will was first written in 2004 and last amended in 2008.
Even before his death, Mandela's children and grandchildren frequently clashed over who leads the family and who should benefit from his investments.
Several have already put the Mandela brand behind commercial projects including wine, clothing, artwork, a social network and a reality television show.
Executor Dikgang Moseneke, the deputy head of South Africa's Constitutional Court, said the reading of the will to the family had been "charged with emotion" but no one had yet contested it.
Mandela's other bequeathments reflected a life in politics and championing education.
Mandela gave around $4,500 each to members of staff, including long-time personal aide Zelda la Grange.
The will also provided around $9,000 each for Wits and Fort Hare universities, and the same amount to three other schools.
The African National Congress, which Mandela led to victory in the first democratic elections in 1994, could receive between 10 and 30 percent of his royalties.
The cash will be used specifically to promote "policies and principles of reconciliation amongst the people of South Africa."
Family feud
It is unclear if the will can prevent family battles over who controls the Mandela name, which have seen family remains exhumed and reinterred and exhumed and reinterred again.
Eldest daughter Makaziwe reportedly had the locks changed on Mandela's rural home after his death to exclude his eldest grandson Mandla, the head of Mandela's clan.
Makaziwe and Mandla both lay claim to lead the family following the death of the anti-apartheid hero in December.
Makaziwe is backed by his second wife Winnie and Mandla has the support for the royal family of his tribe.
Three executors will now be tasked with winding up the estate and carrying out Mandela's wishes.
They are George Bizos, who represented Mandela at the trial that jailed him for 27 years; Moseneke, the deputy head of the country's Constitutional Court who spent years with the icon imprisoned on Robben Island; and Themba Sangoni the head judge in Mandela's birth province the Eastern Cape
Mandela became South Africa's first black president after the first all-race elections in 1994 and his politics of forgiveness and reconciliation made him a global peace icon.
He died December 5 and was buried 10 days later in his rural boyhood home of Qunu
Labels: ANC, CORRUPTION, NELSON MANDELA
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(THE SOUTHAFRICAN SA) ANC promises six million jobs in election manifesto
By The South African.com
on 13 January, 2014 5:13 pm
Opposition parties have expressed doubt that the South African government will be able to fulfil its promises to create six million jobs, fight corruption and improve education, as detailed in the ANC’s election manifesto unveiled by Jacob Zuma on the weekend
President Jacob Zuma said the South African government will expand its public employment programme with an aim of creating six million job opportunities to all South Africans.
Presenting the African National Congress’s January Statement at the Mbombela Stadium, Mpumalanga, on Saturday, Zuma said with youth unemployment reaching alarming levels, the majority of the mooted jobs would be reserved for young people.
The statement was anchored on employment and economic development. The ANC also unveiled its manifesto ahead of this year’s elections.
The statement, which the ruling party presents at the beginning of every year, usually sets the tone for the President’s State of The Nation Address that outlines government’s service delivery progress, and a plan of programmes and priorities of government.
Addressing a packed stadium, Zuma said, “The ANC will expand our already significant public employment programme and we aim to provide six million work opportunities. The majority of these jobs will be reserved for young people. We are also increasing the number of training and skilling opportunities for young people throughout the state-owned enterprises and other government entities. Our infrastructure programme continues to generate massive numbers of sustainable jobs.”
He said the ANC saw the implementation of a national minimum wage as a key intervention of reducing inequalities.
Zuma claimed that employment was now higher than it has ever been and the SA economy had regained the one million jobs lost as a result of the 2008 global economic crisis.
However, DA National Spokesperson Mmusi Maimane disputed this. “The unemployment crisis is the single defining failure of President Zuma’s five years in office. The fact is, since he assumed the Presidency in 2009, more than 1.4 million more people have joined the ranks of the unemployed.”
Agang SA, whose leader Dr Mamphela Ramphele is visiting London next week, said the ANC’s election manifesto was a “predictable laundry list of promises” while it expected South Africans to conveniently forget past failures.
“Can the ruling party be so tone deaf to the disbelief and distrust citizens have towards it that it expects us to believe, without reason, that it will be able to meet these promises any better than it has in the past?” the party said.
Other key announcements that topped the ANC’s agenda for the next five years included:
* Improving education and training by making two years of pre-school education compulsory, eradicating adult illiteracy, bolstering teacher development, opening new universities and expanding the FET sector
* Implementing the National Health Insurance scheme beyond its pilot phase to improve the quality of health care while reducing the cost of medicine and treatment to promote access to the poor
* Providing housing opportunities to qualifying households in rural and urban areas for the next five years and connecting 1.6 million homes to the electricity grid over the next five years
* Clamping down on the current tender system. Zuma said regulations were being finalised that would prohibit public servants from doing business with the state. He said the ANC would institute internal procedures to deal with corruption.
* Zuma said the 1913 Land Act and the resultant dispossessions were directly related to the current problems of poverty, unemployment and inequality. He called on public representatives to finalise the legislation meant to speed up the expropriation of land in the public interest.
Zuma said government had made a lot of progress in the past five years to improve the lives of South Africans.
These included, among others:
* More than R1 trillion has been invested in national infrastructure projects, compared with R451 billion in the previous five years.
* The proportion of adults with access to banking services grew from 60% in 2009 to 75% in 2013.
* Nearly 500 informal settlements have been replaced with quality housing and basic services.
* The matric pass rate increased from 60.6% in 2009 to 78.2% in 2013.
* FET enrolments doubled from 545,566 in 2010 to 657,690 students in 2012.
* Loans and bursaries to poor students grew from 2.3 billion in 2008 to 8 billion in 2013.
* Over seven million learners are in no fee schools, up from five million in 2009.
* Teacher education has expanded-the number of new teacher graduates doubled from 6,000 in 2009 to 13,000 in 2012.
* Through the ‘prevention of mother to child transmission’ programme, the number of babies born HIV positive was reduced by 66% from 24,000 in 2008 to 8,200 in 2011.
* Average life expectancy increased by 4 more years to 60 years in 2012.
Labels: ANC, EMPLOYMENT, JACOB ZUMA, JOBS, UNEMPLOYMENT
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(THOUGHTLEADER SA) Black diamonds could vote EFF
By Ntombenhle Khathwane
There has been much speculation as to where the black middle-class vote will go. What is evident is that there is no party that totally encapsulates the aspirations of these people. Under the current political and economic landscape, the black diamonds could vote EFF as a protest vote against the ANC or because the EFF speaks to their aspirations.
I was surprised at myself for flirting with the idea of voting EFF this year as I had definitely scoffed at the idea of a political party led by Julius Malema when it was first formed. I was even more surprised when I attended an EFF meeting for professionals a few weeks ago and the room was overflowing. On my way to the Midrand venue I had imagined the room would be half-empty, so I was pleasantly surprised that it was full. It got me thinking about whether the black middle class would vote EFF. When political pundits (and even Malema himself) speak about who will vote EFF they focus on the working class and poor, they never mention the black diamonds.
With the demise of Cope, the failure by Mamphela Ramphele to clearly distinguish Agang, the majority of the black middle class is left considering voting the ANC or the newly formed EFF. The recent publicised spats within the DA make it obvious that even white politicians guising themselves as liberals do not understand the need for affirmative action in order to create a level playing ground from which we compete fairly for opportunities. If white politicians don’t get it, then corporate South Africa and the majority of whites won’t get the dangers posed by economic inequality and why it is a problem that the current structure of the economy prevents blacks from participating fairly and gaining ownership of the economy.
Political equality has not created an environment where opportunities can be competed for fairly. Whites have the upper hand in almost every sphere from academia to the world of finance. The black middle class is mainly constituted by educated and hard-working people who are the first to reject the idea of using race or gender to get ahead. These are people who are first to value meritocracy. Yet, as soon as they get into the working world they realise that this value doesn’t exist, especially in corporate South Africa. Race is what gets white people ahead and patriarchy is what keeps women from advancing.
The people who attended the meeting for professionals called by EFF and headlined by Dali Mpofu were professionals from all sectors, lawyers, engineers, bankers and academics mostly working in the corporate sector or running their own businesses. Those in corporate South Africa are clear that race keeps them from advancing fairly. Those in business know that business from corporate South Africa goes to whites and business from government goes to those who are politically connected. Those in academia face their own challenges in these institutions and civil society that are also racial in nature; these challenges prevent black academics from participating fairly in the knowledge economy.
The EFF leaders have not fully articulated their policies so there’s no clear understanding of what they mean by their broad statements or more importantly how they will implement them. This is important because most of us love ANC policies but have seen that implementation has been the challenge for a number of reasons ranging from corruption to interference by trade unions. The EFF speaks as if it will zoom in on certain aspects and do better than the ANC has done. This appeals to the black middle class because after 20 years it is clear that race prevents fair economic participation and economic redistribution and that something drastic has to be done to change the status quo ASAP!
When the EFF speaks of nationalising the mines, whether it’s a good idea or not, this does not affect the middle class directly because very few if any own mines. Although it could affect them indirectly depending on how this nationalisation is supposed to work and how it affects the economy as a whole. The issue of nationalising land also does not affect the black middle class directly because very few if at all own large tracts of valued land. Yet they could benefit indirectly should EFF choose to give all those living on tribal land title deeds and therefore giving economic value to that land. Although the majority of the black middle class live in suburbs they are still very connected to their rural and township roots, therefore they too want to see conditions improve for the black working class and poor. A portion of income earned by the financially overburdened middle class also finds its way back towards supporting family in townships or villages.
The black diamonds find it easier to make decisions on changing political affiliation. Like every other class they vote to further their aspirations. The working class is tied to the parties determined by the unions they are affiliated to. The lower class is tied to the ANC for guaranteed social grants and other basic social benefits such as food, housing, education and health. Whichever political party vies to govern, the ever growing black middle class remains very important because it is this group that will drive economic growth through supplying skilled labour; establishing big corporations that can employ larger numbers of people at commensurate wages and absorb the increasing numbers of unemployed youth.
Ntombenhle Khathwane is an Afro-optimistic social commentator, student of politics and pan-Africanist who believes Africans hold the key to their own development. An entrepreneur and black business activist.
Labels: ANC, ECONOMIC FREEDOM FIGHTERS, JULIUS MALEMA
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(STICKY) (NEWZIMBABWE) SA’s EFF: From economic apartheid to true democracy
08/05/2014 00:00:00
by Garikai Chengu
CONTRARY to the Westernized, popular belief that South Africa is a “model democracy", it is one of Africa's most dysfunctional democracies.
South Africa's apartheid regime is remembered as one of the worst crimes against humanity of the 20th century. The economic system that underpinned it remains alive and well today. Whites comprise only 12 percent of the population but, thanks to the racist exploitation of blacks over the past 350 years, still own 75 percent of the country’s land.
US-based bank, Citigroup, recently ranked South Africa as the world’s richest country, in terms of its mineral reserves, worth an estimated $2.5 trillion. Whites and foreigners own a staggering 80 percent of this wealth. South Africa is, unquestionably, the world's most racially unequal society.
Democracy is not about holding elections, simply to choose which particular representatives of the elite class should rule over the masses. True democracy is about equalizing the economy and giving economic power back to the majority.
The Economic Freedom Fighters party campaigned for the just-ended elections on a platform of three pillars, designed to democratize the economy and overthrow the economic legacy of apartheid. First, expropriation of land for redistribution amongst the masses. Second, nationalization of mines and banks for the benefit of the people and, finally, free education and health care for all
This week marks the most important election in South Africa's post-apartheid history. The EFF is the party of the poor, and if given power by the electorate, it will do what the ruling ANC has failed to do since 1994: provide economic freedom for the poor African majority, at the expense of the predominately white capitalists.
Despite twenty years of South African democracy, five white-owned companies still control 75 percent of South Africa's stock market. It's the largest concentration of wealth and power on earth. Corporate powers, which underwrote apartheid in South Africa, are reminiscent of the great German companies that ran the Third Reich's economy. The only difference between the Third Reich and apartheid is that 'reconciliation' in Germany did not leave pro-Nazi financiers in business whereas in South Africa, those financiers are still firmly in control.
During apartheid, Britain was the single biggest investor in South Africa, followed by the United States, yielding the highest return on capital in the world. The United States and the other Western capitalist governments not only supported, but benefited from the racist apartheid regime. With economic control still concentrated in the hands of the white elite, we see no difference between the old and the new South African regimes. Blacks have reclaimed the political crown, but whites have remained with the crown jewels.
Today, Western media demonizes Julius Malema, the EFF's commander-in-chief, because he is the most outspoken proponent of economic justice. It is no surprise, considering Malema's ideologies threaten the economic stability of some of the most powerful white capitalists in the world.
To this day, a large portion of South Africa's budget pays apartheid-era debt to Western nations. This means the people pay for their oppression twice over. Clearly, the fabric of apartheid, which the Western media claims is long dead, still generates large sums of money, lining the pockets of the very same Western capitalists.
Neo-apartheid companies in South Africa made record profits for Western shareholders since democracy in 1994, all the while shedding hundreds of thousands of jobs. In fact, among the 295 companies on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, only 4 percent of the CEOs are black. Far from being a “model democracy”, South Africa is an example of how not to practice democracy.
The equitable redistribution of land is the first pillar of the EFF's manifesto. Under the 1913 Land Act, blacks were not allowed to own, or even rent, land outside designated native reserves. By 1994, some 87 percent of agricultural land was in white hands. Precious little has changed during the intervening twenty years. One exception is that black people in rural areas have lost 600,000 jobs since “independence”.
At face value, the Economic Freedom Fighters' call for agrarian revolution may appear to be simply about land. But, it is about so much more. For Africans, land is not merely land. Land is a place to be born, a place to grow up, a place to call home, and a place to be buried. Land is a source of food, a livelihood, and an asset to bequeath to our next generations. Above all else, land is a source of African pride. Land is never merely land.
The second pillar of the EFF's manifesto is the nationalization of mines. Pick up the financial report of any major South African mining company, and one will understand why Malema is advocating nationalization. If you examine a sample income of 100 dollars from a typical South African mine, $22 flows directly into the mine owners' pockets and $17 goes to the corporate executives. Crucially, over 90 percent of these beneficiaries are white. The rest is shared between suppliers ($18), capital goods providers ($16), labour ($14), government in the form of taxes ($9), and debt providers ($4).
So the notion that “the nation’s resource wealth is in the hands of a few white industrialists and foreigners” is not one of Malema's populist fictions, but a cold, hard and uncomfortable fact. The EFF plans to use Venezuela as a model of how to nationalize mineral wealth for the benefit of the people. Venezuela, under Hugo Chavez, used its natural resources to go from being one of the most unequal countries in Latin America to the most equal one, in terms of income.
Democracy is not merely about elections. True democracy is also about equal opportunity through education and the right to life through access to health care. In Venezuela, the government has used nationalization of mineral resources to pay for free health care and free education for the masses. The EFF plans to do the same.
Every year, wealthy Western shareholders repatriate hundreds of millions of dollars from South African mines to Western countries in the form of rent, dividends and profits. Nationalization would channel money towards building bridges and clinics at home, as opposed filling Swiss bank accounts abroad. Unlike the ANC, the EFF will put the interests of local labour above foreign capital.
Any true African revolution has three stages: political, agrarian and economic. The ANC has failed on the second and third stages. The ANC liberated South Africa politically, but economically the ruling party shackles the majority by presiding over its white monopoly of bourgeois capitalism. Under the ANC, corruption is booming and the economy is stagnating, at a time when the rest of Africa is starting to boom. The EFF has vowed to tackle corruption by pledging to do away with Ministerial cars and houses. All EFF parliamentarians will be forced use public hospitals, private cars, and send their children to public school.
South Africa is the continent's most powerful nation, however it is also the continent's most economically colonized nation. Therefore, an EFF election victory would not only democratize and decolonize South Africa, it will encourage other African nations to do the same. A full half century after the first African nation gained independence, the World Bank estimates that a staggering 65 percent of Sub-Saharan Africa's best arable land is still controlled by white settlers or multinational corporations.
The World Bank also estimates that as much as 70 percent of the net wealth in Sub-Saharan Africa is owned by non-indigenous Africans or foreigners. The EFF stands to become a future model for all white-dominated, African economies. If the continent's most powerful nation can achieve political, agrarian, and economic independence, then the rest of Africa will follow suit.
"If the ANC does not deliver the goods, then the people must do to it what they have done to the apartheid regime", once remarked Nelson Mandela. Truth is, the ANC has failed the people of South Africa. The current ruling party has been thoroughly co-opted by neo-liberal, big business. It clearly no longer represents the interests of the poor and middle class. The Economic Freedom Fighters are now the party for progressive Africans to support.
Garikai Chengu is a scholar at Harvard University.
Labels: ANC, APARTHEID, BEE, ECONOMIC FREEDOM FIGHTERS (SA), LAND REFORM, NEOCOLONIALISM
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(BLACK AGENDA REPORT) Nelson Mandela, Free Market Capitalism and the South African Crisis
Tue, 12/17/2013 - 21:17 — Anthony Monteiro
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by Anthony Monteiro
The veil must be lifted from the deliberations and machinations that led Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress to discard the people’s Freedom Charter in favor of an accommodation with white capital, in the early Nineties. Why, at South Africa’s most critical juncture, did the ANC make a pact with the Devil? And why did they keep it?
Nelson Mandela, Free Market Capitalism and the South African Crisis
by Anthony Monteiro
“The decision against nationalization has left the people worse off than when Mandela was elected in 1994.”
Why and when did Mandela change his mind about nationalization of the wealth of South Africa? And what have been the results? I find the mainstream media’s accounts, citing Mandela’s claim that he changed his mind at Davos, Switzerland, in 1992 implausible. More troubling is why when Mandela and the ANC led government saw things going so badly for the people they didn’t change course? These questions arise as we try to make sense of Mandela’s legacy. This is especially important in light of the catastrophic crisis of poverty, hunger, unemployment, education and health care besetting the South African people. The decision against nationalization has left the people worse off than when Mandela was elected in 1994. White economic privilege remains the same, and their wealth exponentially increased, a tiny, rich and mostly parasitic black bourgeoisie and a black middle class have been created. For 90 percent of the African population things have not improved.
The New York Times reported on December 10 that Nelson Mandela’s change of thinking occurred at Davos, Switzerland, at the World Economic Forum (the annual meeting of the major bankers, capitalist, entrepreneurs, celebrities, politicians and intellectuals tied to the neo liberal globalist model of the world economy) in January 1992. Tito Mboweni, a former governor of the South African Reserve Bank (that nation’s Central Bank), who accompanied Mandela to Davos, says when Mandela and the ANC delegation arrived Mandela had a speech written by the ANC that focused on nationalization. Mboweni says “we discussed this at some length and decided that its content was inappropriate for a Davos audience.” Mboweni drafts another speech that was friendly to the Davos crowd. The speech was vague and filled with clichés and platitudes and assured the audience that they had nothing to fear from Mandela or the ANC.
In a letter to the Sunday Independent last January Mboweni says it was meetings with representatives of the Communist parties of China and Vietnam that changed Madiba’s mind completely. According to Mboweni the Chinese and Vietnamese told Mandela “We are currently striving to privatize state enterprises and invite private enterprise into our economies. We are Communists Party governments, and you are a leader of a national liberation movement. Why are you talking about nationalization?” According to Anthony Sampson, the author of Mandela: The Authorized Biography, Mandela told him “They changed my views altogether. I came home to say: ‘Chaps we have to choose. We either keep nationalization and get no investment, or we modify our own attitude and get investment.’”
”The path to Mandela’s radical change of mind involved more than conversations during a five-day meeting in Davos in 1992.”
It is obvious that the ANC, the South African national liberation struggle and the nation as a whole were at a critical juncture. They were faced with problems of consolidating political power and moving the nation towards economic emancipation. On the other side, the white regime and its backers in the West were concerned with making concessions to black South Africans that would not disturb western corporate control of this mineral rich and strategically located economy. However I find the accounts of Mr. Sampson and Mr. Mboweni implausible. In other words, the path to Mandela’s radical change of mind involved more than conversations during a five-day meeting in Davos in 1992.
The first question is about the representatives of China and Vietnam. Both nations in 1992 were at different levels of economic development. Vietnam was still in the social and economic reconstruction phase after 25 years of war against foreign aggression. China was a socialist economy that twelve years earlier had entered upon a path of reform within its socialist economy. China at that time had about 80 to 90% of the strategic parts of its economy under state control. Vietnam was similar with the state controlling economic reconstruction. Even today close to 70% of China’s economy is under state control. The most technologically dynamic and profitable sector of the Chinese economy is the state, or nationalized sector. The facts are that China and Vietnam are heavily state dominated economies and each says the objective of their economic planning is to build advanced socialism. Even if we accept that the Chinese and Vietnamese representatives at Davos said what Mboweni says, the next question is who were they and did they represent the official positions of their governments? If we accept the mainstream media’s accounts, they must have been saying, “do as we say, not as we do.” Of course this would have been an instance of unbelievable bad faith, even cynicism. But on this matter, rather than looking to the Chinese and Vietnamese delegates, I think we should question Mr. Mboweni ‘s and Mr. Sampson’s account.
The second point is that when Mandela emerges from prison two of his and the ANC’s most important allies were Cuba and Libya, two nations whose economies were heavily nationalized. Why did Mandela not consult Fidel Castro and Muammar Gadaffi among others to get a more complete view on how well nationalization was working or not working in their nations?
”The decisions made by Mandela and the ANC thwarted a robust transition and allowed the old system to remain pretty much intact.”
The third point, any nation emerging from a long period of civil war and national liberation, experiencing a radical transfer of power, necessarily goes through a period of transition. It is ludicrous to think that sober minds, especially those with the training of most of the ANC, could underestimate a transition where something like a New Deal for the people, including a jobs and infrastructure programs, an anti-poverty crusade, health care, housing and political education, would not be considered necessary. No clear thinking person could have imagined an overnight great leap forward from a ravaged apartheid economy to an advanced socialist one. There would be a transition period of at least a decade where the groundwork would be laid for a new democratic and socialist economy. The forms of this transition would have many layers, even ambiguities, but its direction would be firmly established and based on the Freedom Charter and its call for nationalization. The decisions made by Mandela and the ANC thwarted a robust transition and allowed the old system to remain pretty much intact and thereby recklessly undermined the future of South Africa.
The more plausible scenario, from my perspective, is that Mandela and a small circle around him, long before Davos, perhaps in the last year or so of Mandela’s imprisonment, cut a deal. As we know Mandela entered into secret talks with the white regime before being released. These talks were kept secret from the ANC leadership. There were others in and outside of the ANC who were involved in secret talks about the economy well before 1990. By the time Mandela is released an agreement had been reached with the regime against nationalization. The question for Mandela and those in the ANC who supported him, was to get an appropriate time and place for Mandela to announce his change of position. There had to also be a plausible explanation of why such a drastic change. The Davos story fulfills both requirements, an appropriate place and a plausible story.
The fact that Mr. Mboweni, a free market capitalist, accompanied Mandela to Davos and had such power that he was allowed to trash the ANC speech and substitute for it his own, should raise further troubling questions about the behind scenes operations among the ANC elite. Why weren’t other views present in the ANC delegation at Davos? Or were they dismissed as “too radical” even before Davos?
”By the time Mandela is released an agreement had been reached with the regime against nationalization.”
Not long after the Davos announcement the ANC (or the free market and neo liberal elements within the ANC) announced that the first black government would assume the entire debt of the white regime. A sum of close to $25 billion. The ANC took an IMF loan to pay the debt, which came with severe strings attached that protected white control of the post apartheid economy. (see my article in BAR Dec 11 2013 for a further discussion of this). Mandela’s claim that he was turned around at Davos is questionable and his turn against the Freedom Charter and the aspirations of the masses of South Africa (who cherished the Freedom Charter as their manifesto of freedom and reflective of their freedom aspirations) is problematic.
Winnie Mandela has said repeatedly that when Mandela emerged from prison he was not the same man. She says his revolutionary resolve was different. What she probably meant is his change of heart on economic policy and his willingness to, as she saw it, make unnecessary compromises with white South Africans and Western interests. Ronnie Kasrils, former minister in ANC governments, a member of the ANC executive and a leader of Umkonto weSizwe recently wrote (The Guardian, June 23, 2013) that the decision against nationalization was a “Faustian bargain” with the white world that sold out the South African poor. Naomi Klein in her book The Shock Doctrine suggests the bargain was that in return for the ANC turning against The Freedom Charter and nationalization, the West would make Mandela a living saint.
In my BAR article “Nelson Mandela, The Contradictions of his Life and Legacies” I argue there are four stages in Mandela’s life. The fourth is 1990 to 2013. This is the most contradictory in terms of his previous revolutionary activity. However, it is as significant to understanding his legacy and life as the previous ones are. The burning question is in power what did he and his ANC colleagues do to liberate the nation from economic apartheid and foreign corporate control. At this point the answer is in power the ANC failed. The problem is not important only to South Africans or Africans, but for how humanity, especially its impoverished and destitute majority, imagines the future world and how we fight for it.
Anthony Monteiro is a professor of African American Studies at Temple University. He can be contacted at tmon(at)comcast.net.
Labels: ANC, NELSON MANDELA, NEOCOLONIALISM, NEOLIBERALISM
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(BLACK AGENDA REPORT) Eyewitness to America Betraying Mandela's South Africa: The Gore - Mbeki Commission
Wed, 12/11/2013 - 11:12 — Marsha Coleman-...
by Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo
Nelson Mandela's ANC leadership negotiated the form of the new South Africa on two tracks, the political wrangling in one set of meetings, & the decisions on the nation's economic future separately at another location, headed by Thabo Mbeki. The results were predictable, as Miriam Makeba said: "We got the flag, but they got to keep the money."
Eyewitness to America Betraying Mandela’s South Africa: The Gore – Mbeki Commission – Part I
by Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo
"Soon after assuming my position I realized that something had gone terribly wrong."
At the dawn of the Nelson Mandela administration, I had the extraordinary privilege to sit at the table with the new African National Congress leadership as the Environmental Protection Agency /White House liaison to the Mandela government. My job was to work with the new ANC leadership to design and provide US technical environmental expertise to assist the majority population's recovery from the environmental and public health disaster the apartheid system imposed on it. This process took place through the flagship foreign policy vehicle, the US-South African BiNational Commission commonly called the Gore-Mbeki Commission or the BNC. All bilateral foreign policy activities between the US and South Africa took place through this Commission. A detailed account of these events can be found in my book: No FEAR: A Whistleblower’s Triumph over Corruption and Retaliation at the EPA.
As a graduate student and professor, I had been an anti-apartheid activist who marched with my colleagues in the Southern Africa Support Project (SASP) and TransAfrica in front of the South African Embassy to “Free Mandela” and to express our solidarity with the South African revolution. When I was offered the position of Executive Secretary to the BNC in 1995, I made it clear to the EPA—citing racist US foreign policy in other African countries—that I would not be a part of any diabolical scheme against the South African people. I was a supporter of the South African Freedom Charter and excited about helping the Mandela government implement environmental policies that would reverse decades of harmful and at times fatal policies towards the black majority. Soon after assuming my position I realized that something had gone terribly wrong. In a 1996 letter to my mentor, professor Noam Chomsky I wrote: "The Freedom Charter is not on the table. I’m heart broken to report that despite the blood sacrifice of so many activists, South Africa is entering a neo-colonial phase."
Vice President Al Gore said of the BNC: “I affirm that the people of the United States of America are committed to the strongest possible partnership with the citizens of South Africa." His counterpart, Thabo Mbeki, then deputy president of South Africa, proclaimed that he appreciated “this relationship of support and engagement for creating a better life for the people of this country.”
" Under a green banner, they were seeking to continue the previous relationship with Afrikaner leaders they had enjoyed while Nelson Mandela languished in prison for three decades."
CNN's description at the time of one aspect of BNC's mission was closer to the truth: a further goal of the BNC was to hold regular trade talks and cooperate in the fight against international terrorism.
There was a stark difference between the stated goals of the BNC and US political strategy. It would become evident that the functional goal of the environment committee of the BiNational Commission was to provide cover for the same US multinational corporations that had participated in the repression of South Africa during apartheid. Under a green banner, they were seeking to continue the previous relationship with Afrikaner leaders they had enjoyed while Nelson Mandela languished in prison for three decades.
I was the US official to whom the first reports of illness and death relating to vanadium mining were given by black South African union leaders and later by the new environmental leadership in the Nelson Mandela government. The US ignored these reports, choosing to protect American-owned multinational corporations that were operating in South Africa. The reports included symptomology of miners whose tongues were turning green, bronchitis, asthma, bleeding from bodily orifices, impotence in young, healthy male workers, cancers and ultimately death.
By 1996 US policy had not changed from the Reagan Administration—but the PR and public statements did—in response to growing US public outcries from the anti-apartheid movement and international human rights groups. Still, behind the scenes and in agencies like the EPA, the US role was business as usual.
As flowers adorn the front of the statue of Mandela at the South African embassy it is worth noting that the statue was paid for by the same corporate concerns that supported Mandela's incarceration including: the , The South African Mining Group, South Africa’s Synthetic Fuels, the chemicals giant Sasol, the South African Gold Coin Exchange and Standard Bank. These corporate co-conspirators think they can fool us with plaques, devotionals and crocodile tears.
Labels: ANC, BANTU HOLOMISA, EPA, FREEDOM CHARTER, NEOCOLONIALISM, POLLUTION
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(CITY PRESS SA) Booing at FNB Stadium belongs exclusively to ANC – Julius Malema
Poloko Tau @City_Press #Mandela 11 December 2013 16:50
Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema has taken to Twitter to defend his party against suggestions that its members were booing President Jacob Zuma at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service at the FNB Stadium yesterday.
In a reply to his followers who engaged him on Twitter earlier today, Malema said: “I’ve taken responsibility at all times for our action. The booing at FNB Stadium belongs exclusively to the ANC.”
He tweeted again: “We have seen people in ANC colours booing. Whatever you have against the EFF should not blind you please.”
His comments come in the wake of suggestions that EFF members had been responsible for booing Zuma. However, several media reports said Zuma was booed by a general crowd who were also making gestures suggesting a change or substitution when Zuma’s presence was acknowledged by ANC deputy president, Cyril Ramaphosa.
The Sowetan newspaper reported that police had thrown out members of the rowdy crowd. City Press journalist Lesley Mofokeng saw a group of presumably EFF members in red T-shirts and signature red berets “disappear”. They were promptly replaced by mourners in civilian clothes.
Attempts to get hold of Malema, who said on Twitter yesterday that he was following the memorial proceedings on television, were unsuccessful.
He tweeted at about the same time Zuma was booed yesterday: “The writing is on the wall, the defiant spirit of Madiba continues to speak to us.”
Despite the EFF’s well-documented dislike of Zuma, party spokesperson Mbuyiseni Ndlozi said the party was not responsible for what had happened at the stadium claiming it was, in fact, “ANC members (who) were quoted in the media saying they will continue to boo” Zuma.
Ndlozi referred to several media reports which he said made it “clear that the booing (was) non-partisan”. He said any suggestions that EFF members booed Zuma was “scapegoating in the public arena”.
Meanwhile, Ndlozi said Malema was planning to attend Mandela’s funeral in the Eastern Cape on Sunday.
He said today the “commander-in-chief was expected to be in Qunu” for the funeral.
Labels: ANC, ECONOMIC FREEDOM FIGHTERS, EFF, JACOB ZUMA, JULIUS MALEMA
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