Speech by the DA's Shadow Minister of Justice, Glynnis Breytenbach MP during the budget vote debate on Justice, Parliament, July 15 2014:Our state institutions need to be rescued
South Africa has, if not the strongest, then one of the strongest constitutional legislative frameworks in the world. It is designed to ensure that all our citizens live in safety and security, and that everyone is equal before the law. It is these principles that should guide the criminal justice cluster in the performance of their duties, guided always by the prescripts of the Constitution and the principle of the Rule of Law.
However, this has not been done successfully or at all, and the web of terror that crime throws over South Africa is so strong and far-reaching that every South African has been constrained by it in some way. The lives of many committed and talented South Africans have been lost. Many are deeply traumatised. We have become suspicious of our fellow citizens and distrusting of the institutions that are supposed to keep us safe.
This has a negative effect on the fight against crime in general, and the fight against corruption in particular. This in turn has a disastrous effect on the economy and investment. International investors are hesitant to invest where they believe that they may have no recourse, where they have little faith in the ability of the legal framework to offer adequate protection. A knock-on effect is the high unemployment rate, and the inability to create jobs and employ particularly young people and young graduates.
The 2007 Cabinet adopted a so-called seven-point plan to review and revamp the Criminal Justice System. This, very briefly, was designed to address the most serious shortcomings of the Criminal Justice System, and was to create an effective and efficient so-called Integrated Criminal Justice System. We now find ourselves in mid-2014, and no closer to achieving even the most modest of the goals set out in that plan. Seven years of planning, budgeting and promises of implementation have left us nowhere. Billions have been spent by the Department of Justice and the Criminal Justice Cluster in pursuit of these goals, with very little or nothing to show for it.
This year, again, in his overview of the proposed budget, Minister Masutha refers to these goals, how they will be pursued and achieved and how much will be spent in the pursuit thereof. And this year, again, there can be no realistic expectation of any success in this regard.
The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) is an important player in the Criminal Justice Cluster, and the institution upon which the achievement of these goals largely rests, is in disarray. It has been without a permanent head for long periods, and the ensuing chaos is as a direct result of this. Acting heads, who by their very nature are directionless, and unsuitable appointments have wreaked havoc on a once strong and dependable institution. This is, of course, the direct result of unabashed and undisguised political meddling in the affairs of the National Prosecuting Authority, and the Criminal Justice Cluster as a whole.
The National Prosecuting Authority is an institution that should have no dirty linen to wash, let alone to be washed in public. Yet week after week we see it lurch from one damaging scandal to the next. Its reputation is in tatters. It is constantly in the news, and never for the right reasons. The public at large has no faith in the organization to fulfill even its most basic mandate, and a budget of billions annually sees no real improvement in its daily functions. Millions are wasted on litigation for poor or no reasons.
The hapless Koki Mpshe was appointed after the inexcusable firing of Vusi Pikoli, solely to facilitate the withdrawal of the corruption and other charges against the President. The appointment of the wholly unsuitable Menzi Simelane was defended to the doors of the Constitutional Court, the equally unsuitable Nomcgobo Jiba was rushed up the corporate ladder in order to be able to replace him, and to oversee the continued stonewalling surrounding the spy tapes saga and the protection of Richard Mdluli, astonishingly even in the face of various court judgements. Under pressure from various sources, the President, having had plenty of time to apply his mind, appointed Mxolisi Nxasana, only to institute an enquiry into his fitness to hold office ten months later, and only after he called for the spy tapes and related documents and re-instituted the charges against Richard Mdluli. It takes no great amount of intelligence to glean the golden thread in this sad tale.
The only sensible thing to do now is for the President to widen the still to be announced terms of reference of the Commission to include an enquiry into the behaviour of other senior managers, notably Adv Jiba and Adv Mrwebi. Both were severely criticized in judgements in the High Court and the Supreme Court of Appeal. The top structure of the National Prosecuting Authority needs to be cleaned out so that those who remain can get on with the core business of the organization.
The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) has not fared much better than the National Prosecuting Authority. Beset by leadership issues the Special Investigating Unit has largely failed to fulfill its proclaimed goals, despite a year on year increase in its budget. Many investigations have dragged on for years, and appear to be nowhere near completion. The Bosasa matter has been live for more than 5 years now, still with no end in sight, and the Head, Adv Soni, admitted last week before the Portfolio Committee that he could give no indication as to when the Nkandla investigation and report would be finalized and placed before the President.
Despite the importance of and public interest in the matter, the Special Investigating Unit only managed to gain access to the premises at Nkandla on 3 July 2014. Adv Soni declined to say who was responsible for the delay, despite the parties involved being legally obliged to co-operate with him. Given the profile of this matter, and the obvious importance and pressure to finalize it, no real progress could be demonstrated, and certainly no will to drive the matter was discernible.
The current presentation before the Portfolio Committee reveals an enormous decrease in cases expected to be finalized, but despite this the Special Investigating Unit felt comfortable to approach Parliament and request an increased budget in order to meet its significantly decreased goals. There can be very little confidence that even these modest goals will be met. Again we see an important component in the Criminal Justice Cluster being reduced to a somewhat embarrassing ineffectiveness due to overt political meddling.
The office of the public protector is a chapter 9 institution and an independent body reporting to Parliament, whose mandate is being followed and fulfilled, but is clearly under fire due to the independence being exhibited. The Public Protector herself is vilified, accused of overreaching her mandate, accused of playing politics and the target of severe personal criticism from certain limited sources, simply because she refuses to bow to political pressure and refuses to allow political interference in the institution, which derives its independence from the Constitution.
Again, the thread of political interference in these institutions is glaring, and the attack on the independence of the Criminal Justice Cluster is palpable.
No amount of budget increases will fix this. No amount of money is going to make these institutions effective in the face of such interference. The interference must stop. And it is our duty, the duty of this fifth Parliament, to all those citizens who voted for us to sit here, to make it stop, and to work towards making the Criminal Justice Cluster effective and efficient, in order to fulfill the role it is enjoined to fill by the Constitution. If we allow the Rule of Law to be eroded any further, we will find it impossible to regain the lost ground.
The great Russian author, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote: " in keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations."
We are tired. We want justice now. Sikathele manje. Sifuna ukulunga.
Issued by the DA, July 15 2014
Source: Politicsweb
Showing posts with label Governance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Governance. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
Reserve Bank fines banks over lack of effective anti-money laundering measures
SOUTH Africa’s big four banks have been fined R125m by the Reserve Bank for failing to have appropriate measures to ensure compliance with the provisions of the Financial Intelligence Centre Act (Fica).
Standard Bank was slammed with the highest financial penalty of R60m, FirstRand was hit with R30m, Nedbank R25m and Absa R10m.
Standard Bank was found to have failed to meet its obligations to report cash transactions above R24,999.99 to the financial intelligence centre. It was also criticised for slack controls for detecting property associated with terrorist activities.
The bank said in a statement it had taken “immediate remedial action to address the issues identified” and initiated a programme to address the findings.
Absa, FirstRand and Nedbank were also penalised for keeping inadequate customer verification details and transactional records.
In terms of Fica, the Reserve Bank is tasked to supervise and enforce compliance with Fica rules to ensure that banks have controls to deal with money laundering and combat the financing of terrorism.
However, the Reserve Bank said the fines did not mean that South Africa’s big four banks had in any way facilitated transactions involving money laundering and the financing of terrorism.
All the big-four banks were directed to take remedial action to address weaknesses when it comes to identifying and verifying customers’ details.
Earlier in the year, Standard Bank plc in the UK was hammered with a £7.6m fine by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority for failures in its money laundering controls and procedures over corporate customers connected to politically exposed persons.
Source: Business Day
Standard Bank was slammed with the highest financial penalty of R60m, FirstRand was hit with R30m, Nedbank R25m and Absa R10m.
Standard Bank was found to have failed to meet its obligations to report cash transactions above R24,999.99 to the financial intelligence centre. It was also criticised for slack controls for detecting property associated with terrorist activities.
The bank said in a statement it had taken “immediate remedial action to address the issues identified” and initiated a programme to address the findings.
Absa, FirstRand and Nedbank were also penalised for keeping inadequate customer verification details and transactional records.
In terms of Fica, the Reserve Bank is tasked to supervise and enforce compliance with Fica rules to ensure that banks have controls to deal with money laundering and combat the financing of terrorism.
However, the Reserve Bank said the fines did not mean that South Africa’s big four banks had in any way facilitated transactions involving money laundering and the financing of terrorism.
All the big-four banks were directed to take remedial action to address weaknesses when it comes to identifying and verifying customers’ details.
Earlier in the year, Standard Bank plc in the UK was hammered with a £7.6m fine by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority for failures in its money laundering controls and procedures over corporate customers connected to politically exposed persons.
Source: Business Day
Monday, February 17, 2014
Board Investigations and the Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb – Part I
On this day in 1923, the tomb of King Tut was opened. It created a worldwide stir that has in many ways continued down into the 21st century. Clearly, the boy ruler influenced Steve Martin , (How’d you get so funky?, Funky Tut). Moreover, when the King Tut exhibit first toured the US in the 1970s, it sold out everywhere that it went. And, of course, there was the Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb, which led to some great Universal classic horror pictures. This curse may have killed the dig’s benefactor, Lord Carnarvon who died just months after entering the tomb in November 1923, but the archeologist who discovered King Tut, Howard Carter, seemingly outlived the curse, dying at the age of 64 on the eve of World War II.
I thought about the techniques employed by these two archeologists in the Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb when I read an article in the Corporate Board magazine, entitled “Successful Board Investigations” by David Bayless and Tammy Albarrán, partners in the law firm of Covington & Burling LLP. Why the Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb? It is because if a Board of Directors does not get an investigation which it handles right, the consequences can be quite severe. Over the next two posts I will explore the article by Bayless and Albarrán. Today in Part I, I will review the author’s five key objectives, which they believe a board must pursue to ensure a successful investigation. Tomorrow. in Part II, I will review the authors seven considerations to facilitate a successful board investigation.
The authors recognize that the vast majority of investigations will be handled or directed by in-house counsel. However, if and when such an investigation is needed, it is critical that it be handled with great care and skill. The authors note that “While this task is fraught with peril, there are a number of steps a board can take to ensure that the investigation accomplishes the board’s goals, which will enable it to make informed decisions, and withstands scrutiny by third parties” because it is this third party scrutiny, in the form of regulators, government officials, judges/arbitrators or plaintiffs’ counsel in shareholder actions, who will be reviewing any investigation commissioned by a Board of Directors. The authors believe that there are five key goals that any investigation led by a Board of Directors must meet. They are:
Thoroughness - The authors believe that one of the key, and most critical, questions that any regulator might pose is just how thorough is an investigation; to test whether they can rely on the facts discovered without having to repeat the investigation themselves. Regulators tend to be skeptical of investigations where limits are placed (expressly or otherwise) on the investigators, in terms of what is investigated, or how the investigation is conducted. This question can be an initial deal-killer particularly if the regulator involved views an investigation insufficiently thorough, its credibility is undermined. And, of course, it can lead to the dreaded ‘Where else’ question.
Objectivity - Here the authors write that any “investigation must follow the facts wherever they lead, regardless of the consequences. This includes how the findings may impact senior management or other company employees. An investigation seen as lacking objectivity will be viewed by outsiders as inadequate or deficient.” I would add that in addition to the objectivity requirement in the investigation, the same must be had with the investigators themselves. If a company uses its regular outside counsel, it may be viewed with some askance, particularly if the client is a high volume client of the law firm involved, either in dollar amounts or in number of matters handled by the firm.
Accuracy - As in any part of a best practices anti-corruption compliance program, the three most important things are Document, Document and Document. This means that the factual findings of an investigation must be well supported. For if the developed facts are not well supported, the authors believe that the investigation is “open to collateral attack by skeptical prosecutors and regulators. If that happens, the time and money spent on the internal investigation will have been wasted, because the government will end up conducting its own investigation of the same issues.” This is never good and your company may well lose what little credibility and good will that it may have engendered by self-reporting or self-investigating.
Timeliness - Certainly in the world of Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) enforcement, an internal investigation should be done quickly. This has become even more necessary with the tight deadlines set under the Dodd-Frank Act Whistleblower provisions. But there are other considerations for a public company such as an impending Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) quarterly or annual report that may need to be deferred absent as a timely resolution of the matter. Lastly, the Department of Justice (DOJ) or SEC may view delaying an investigation as simply a part of document spoliation. So timeliness is crucial.
Credibility - One of the realities of any FCPA investigation is that a Board of Directors led investigation is reviewed after the fact by not only skeptical third parties but also sometimes years after the initial events and investigation. So not only is there the opportunity for Monday-Morning Quarterbacking but quite a bit of post event analysis. So the authors believe that any Board of Directors led investigation “must be (and must be perceived as) credible as to what was done, how it was done, and who did it. Otherwise, the board’s work will have been for naught.”
To help manage these five issues the authors have seven tangible considerations they suggest that a Board of Directors follow to help make an investigation successful. Tomorrow I will review and scrutinize these seven considerations.
Source: FPCA Compliance and Ethics Blog by Thomas Fox.
Thomas Fox has practiced law in Houston for 30 years. He is now an Independent Consultant, assisting companies with anti-corruption and anti-bribery compliance and international transaction issues. He was most recently the General Counsel at Drilling Controls, Inc., a worldwide oilfield manufacturing and service company. He was previously division counsel with Halliburton Energy Services, Inc. where he supported Halliburton’s software division and its downhole division. Tom is the author of the award winning FCPA Compliance and Ethics Blog and the international best-selling book “Lessons Learned on Compliance and Ethics”. His second book, “Best Practices Under the FCPA and Bribery Act” was released in April, 2013. He recently released his first eBook, “GSK In China: A Game Changer in Compliance”. He writes and lectures across the globe on anti-corruption and anti-bribery compliance programs.
I thought about the techniques employed by these two archeologists in the Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb when I read an article in the Corporate Board magazine, entitled “Successful Board Investigations” by David Bayless and Tammy Albarrán, partners in the law firm of Covington & Burling LLP. Why the Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb? It is because if a Board of Directors does not get an investigation which it handles right, the consequences can be quite severe. Over the next two posts I will explore the article by Bayless and Albarrán. Today in Part I, I will review the author’s five key objectives, which they believe a board must pursue to ensure a successful investigation. Tomorrow. in Part II, I will review the authors seven considerations to facilitate a successful board investigation.
The authors recognize that the vast majority of investigations will be handled or directed by in-house counsel. However, if and when such an investigation is needed, it is critical that it be handled with great care and skill. The authors note that “While this task is fraught with peril, there are a number of steps a board can take to ensure that the investigation accomplishes the board’s goals, which will enable it to make informed decisions, and withstands scrutiny by third parties” because it is this third party scrutiny, in the form of regulators, government officials, judges/arbitrators or plaintiffs’ counsel in shareholder actions, who will be reviewing any investigation commissioned by a Board of Directors. The authors believe that there are five key goals that any investigation led by a Board of Directors must meet. They are:
Thoroughness - The authors believe that one of the key, and most critical, questions that any regulator might pose is just how thorough is an investigation; to test whether they can rely on the facts discovered without having to repeat the investigation themselves. Regulators tend to be skeptical of investigations where limits are placed (expressly or otherwise) on the investigators, in terms of what is investigated, or how the investigation is conducted. This question can be an initial deal-killer particularly if the regulator involved views an investigation insufficiently thorough, its credibility is undermined. And, of course, it can lead to the dreaded ‘Where else’ question.
Objectivity - Here the authors write that any “investigation must follow the facts wherever they lead, regardless of the consequences. This includes how the findings may impact senior management or other company employees. An investigation seen as lacking objectivity will be viewed by outsiders as inadequate or deficient.” I would add that in addition to the objectivity requirement in the investigation, the same must be had with the investigators themselves. If a company uses its regular outside counsel, it may be viewed with some askance, particularly if the client is a high volume client of the law firm involved, either in dollar amounts or in number of matters handled by the firm.
Accuracy - As in any part of a best practices anti-corruption compliance program, the three most important things are Document, Document and Document. This means that the factual findings of an investigation must be well supported. For if the developed facts are not well supported, the authors believe that the investigation is “open to collateral attack by skeptical prosecutors and regulators. If that happens, the time and money spent on the internal investigation will have been wasted, because the government will end up conducting its own investigation of the same issues.” This is never good and your company may well lose what little credibility and good will that it may have engendered by self-reporting or self-investigating.
Timeliness - Certainly in the world of Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) enforcement, an internal investigation should be done quickly. This has become even more necessary with the tight deadlines set under the Dodd-Frank Act Whistleblower provisions. But there are other considerations for a public company such as an impending Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) quarterly or annual report that may need to be deferred absent as a timely resolution of the matter. Lastly, the Department of Justice (DOJ) or SEC may view delaying an investigation as simply a part of document spoliation. So timeliness is crucial.
Credibility - One of the realities of any FCPA investigation is that a Board of Directors led investigation is reviewed after the fact by not only skeptical third parties but also sometimes years after the initial events and investigation. So not only is there the opportunity for Monday-Morning Quarterbacking but quite a bit of post event analysis. So the authors believe that any Board of Directors led investigation “must be (and must be perceived as) credible as to what was done, how it was done, and who did it. Otherwise, the board’s work will have been for naught.”
To help manage these five issues the authors have seven tangible considerations they suggest that a Board of Directors follow to help make an investigation successful. Tomorrow I will review and scrutinize these seven considerations.
Source: FPCA Compliance and Ethics Blog by Thomas Fox.
Thomas Fox has practiced law in Houston for 30 years. He is now an Independent Consultant, assisting companies with anti-corruption and anti-bribery compliance and international transaction issues. He was most recently the General Counsel at Drilling Controls, Inc., a worldwide oilfield manufacturing and service company. He was previously division counsel with Halliburton Energy Services, Inc. where he supported Halliburton’s software division and its downhole division. Tom is the author of the award winning FCPA Compliance and Ethics Blog and the international best-selling book “Lessons Learned on Compliance and Ethics”. His second book, “Best Practices Under the FCPA and Bribery Act” was released in April, 2013. He recently released his first eBook, “GSK In China: A Game Changer in Compliance”. He writes and lectures across the globe on anti-corruption and anti-bribery compliance programs.
Monday, February 3, 2014
Officials cock a snook at Land Claims Judge
The Matabane Community of Waterberg in the Limpopo Province and landowners scored a significant Land Claim's Court victory three months ago. Both groups have been in an eighteen-year struggle for compensation. The Judge hearing their case berated Land Claims officials and the State Attorney for dragging their heels.
The community had sought restitution of the land that had been expropriated from them. It comprised a number of farms in the Waterberg district.
Officials remiss and arrogant
The Restitution of Land Rights Act came into operation in 1994, "To provide for the restitution of rights in land to persons or communities dispossessed of such rights after 19 June 1913 as a result of past racially discriminatory laws or practices." The Matabane Community fall into this group.
Judge Eberhard Bertelsmann said that in effecting redress, the law expects Land Claims officials to, "do anything necessarily connected with, or reasonably incidental to the expeditious finalisation of claims." It was clear from the evidence before the Land Claims Court that officials had been remiss in their handling of the Matabane Community's case and arrogant in their dealings with the court. Their "remissness", as the Judge described it, was not limited to this matter. Evidence before the court suggested that it was part of a bigger malaise.
Thousands of claims not yet finalised
Judge Bertelsmann said that is was: "disconcerting that between seven and nine thousand claims have not remotely been finalised almost twenty years after the Land Claims Act was passed." "One could be forgiven for assuming that under these circumstances land claims officials would be clamouring at the gates of Court insisting upon speedy resolutions of outstanding matters."
In the matter before court, land claims officials had early in 2007 established that the landowners, who were to be deprived of their farms, had rejected adjudication of their compensation claim through the Land Claims Commission's internal processes. They insisted that the matter be taken to court. Land Claims Court proceedings could only begin once the Commission has issued a Notice of Referral. This was not done.
Dragging of heels
Towards the end of 2007 the landowners obtained a court order compelling the Commission to issue the Notice of Referral. The Commission, unhappy with the Court's directive, unsuccessfully sought leave to appeal it. The Notice of Referral was finally issued late in May 2009. It was defective in a number of respects. Judge Bertelsmann: "There is no explanation on the papers why it took almost a year to take this step. Even less is there an explanation for the failure to fully include in such notice all information required by the Act and the Rules."
Hearings in the Land Claims Court - a court which has the same stature as the High Court - are preceded by a pre-trial conference so that the parties may agree on the further conduct of the case and limit the number of issues to be adjudicated upon. There were seven pre-trial conferences. The first took place in June 2011 and the last in May 2012. Bertelsmann found that this process had taken an unreasonably long time.
Judicial displeasure
Judge Bertelsmann: "The Commission and its functionaries have been remiss in the performance of their duties to advance the claimants' case as speedily as possible."
In the July 2011 pre-trial conference the defendants' attorney gave the Commission the addresses of all interested parties by so that they could be notified that the matter was heading for court and a decision might be made affecting their rights. At that pre-trial conference the Commission undertook to file at court a certificate relating to competing land claims and the State Attorney - the law firm representing the Commission - undertook to notify the interested parties. They all agreed that this would be done by 19 August 2011. This agreement had the effect of a court order.
By September 2011, when the third pre-trial conference took place, it became apparent that the undertakings by the Commission and the State Attorney had not been honoured. According to the judgment, the Commission was directed by the court to file an affidavit explaining how all of the court's previous directives had been dealt with. If the directive had not all been complied with, the Commission was directed to explain under oath:
A costs order de bonis propriis is rarely made. It is a radical order, punitive in nature and conveys the court's disapproval of substantial misconduct by a litigant. The person against whom such an order is made has to pay the costs out of their own pocket. In the case of a state official, the relevant government department would not be held liable to pay the costs order on behalf of such an official.
The lamentable disregard for the Court's orders continued. Judge Bertelsmann: "In spite of this expression of judicial displeasure at the continued failure to comply with the Courts orders, no effect was given to them."
This Act makes provision for claimants lawyers to be paid by the Commission during the restitution process. Funding had been approved years before, but no money had been forthcoming. The Judge noted that this sort of failure is a factor that adversely impacts upon litigants' constitutional right of access to justice.
Constitutional litigation
The Judge observed that, "restitution of land rights is essentially constitutional litigation."
"The Commission is an Organ of State created for the very purpose of safeguarding the constitutional rights of claimants and landowners alike, who both find themselves in litigation with the State and whose interests and competing claims should be treated with due diligence and respect."
Contempt of Court
Judge Bertelsmann considered the defendants' request that a number of Land Claims officials be held in contempt of Court. "Attention must first be paid to the explanation proffered by the State parties for their remissness," he said. He singled out Mr Richard Mulaudzi, a Legal Administrative Officer in the Office of the Regional Land Claims Commissioner for the Limpopo Province.
Mulaudzi, in an affidavit, filed outside of the time limits set by the court, shared his personal views with Judge Steve Kahanovitz, the Judge who heard an earlier aspect of this claim: "I would not serve much purpose for the Commissioners to be deviated by the Court to appear. I did not find any compelling reason [given by Judge Kahanovitz] that necessitated that the Commissioner should be ordered to attend."
"Mr Mulaudzi's remarks regarding the need for the Commissioners to obey the Court's instruction are grossly inappropriate and display an extremely and highly regrettable attitude towards the Court's dignity and authority. Mulaudzi's views regarding the need to obey a Court's order are contemptuous and display an extremely worrisome ignorance of his duties as a civil servant employed by an organ of State toward the Courts in general and toward this Court in this matter in particular. Orders of court must be complied with, regardless as to whether they are issued correctly or otherwise, until they are recalled or set aside. This is a fundamental principle of a democratic constitutional State," said Judge Bertelsmann.
Referring to the time early in 1998 when Louis Luyt subpoenaed former President Nelson Mandela to testify to the South African Rugby Football Union case, Bertelsmann wrote, "Mr Mulaudzi would be well advised to study the example of the first post-apartheid President of the Republic of South Africa."
The Judge was unable to hold the Land Claims officials in contempt on legal technical grounds.
He expressed the Court's displeasure by ordering the Regional Land Claims commissioner to pay the defendants costs on the scale as between attorney and client.
Judge Bertelsmann further ordered that the matter be brought to finality as soon as possible.
We will be following the further progress of this particular land claim. Watch this space.
Source: Politicsweb
The community had sought restitution of the land that had been expropriated from them. It comprised a number of farms in the Waterberg district.
Officials remiss and arrogant
The Restitution of Land Rights Act came into operation in 1994, "To provide for the restitution of rights in land to persons or communities dispossessed of such rights after 19 June 1913 as a result of past racially discriminatory laws or practices." The Matabane Community fall into this group.
Judge Eberhard Bertelsmann said that in effecting redress, the law expects Land Claims officials to, "do anything necessarily connected with, or reasonably incidental to the expeditious finalisation of claims." It was clear from the evidence before the Land Claims Court that officials had been remiss in their handling of the Matabane Community's case and arrogant in their dealings with the court. Their "remissness", as the Judge described it, was not limited to this matter. Evidence before the court suggested that it was part of a bigger malaise.
Thousands of claims not yet finalised
Judge Bertelsmann said that is was: "disconcerting that between seven and nine thousand claims have not remotely been finalised almost twenty years after the Land Claims Act was passed." "One could be forgiven for assuming that under these circumstances land claims officials would be clamouring at the gates of Court insisting upon speedy resolutions of outstanding matters."
In the matter before court, land claims officials had early in 2007 established that the landowners, who were to be deprived of their farms, had rejected adjudication of their compensation claim through the Land Claims Commission's internal processes. They insisted that the matter be taken to court. Land Claims Court proceedings could only begin once the Commission has issued a Notice of Referral. This was not done.
Dragging of heels
Towards the end of 2007 the landowners obtained a court order compelling the Commission to issue the Notice of Referral. The Commission, unhappy with the Court's directive, unsuccessfully sought leave to appeal it. The Notice of Referral was finally issued late in May 2009. It was defective in a number of respects. Judge Bertelsmann: "There is no explanation on the papers why it took almost a year to take this step. Even less is there an explanation for the failure to fully include in such notice all information required by the Act and the Rules."
Hearings in the Land Claims Court - a court which has the same stature as the High Court - are preceded by a pre-trial conference so that the parties may agree on the further conduct of the case and limit the number of issues to be adjudicated upon. There were seven pre-trial conferences. The first took place in June 2011 and the last in May 2012. Bertelsmann found that this process had taken an unreasonably long time.
Judicial displeasure
Judge Bertelsmann: "The Commission and its functionaries have been remiss in the performance of their duties to advance the claimants' case as speedily as possible."
In the July 2011 pre-trial conference the defendants' attorney gave the Commission the addresses of all interested parties by so that they could be notified that the matter was heading for court and a decision might be made affecting their rights. At that pre-trial conference the Commission undertook to file at court a certificate relating to competing land claims and the State Attorney - the law firm representing the Commission - undertook to notify the interested parties. They all agreed that this would be done by 19 August 2011. This agreement had the effect of a court order.
By September 2011, when the third pre-trial conference took place, it became apparent that the undertakings by the Commission and the State Attorney had not been honoured. According to the judgment, the Commission was directed by the court to file an affidavit explaining how all of the court's previous directives had been dealt with. If the directive had not all been complied with, the Commission was directed to explain under oath:
- why it should not be held in contempt of Court;
- why is should not be ordered to comply with all previous orders within ten further days;
- why its legal representatives [the State Attorney] should not be ordered to pay the costs of two days of pre-trial conference de bonis propriis on the scale of attorney and client. In the alternative, why the Commission should not pay such costs on the punitive scale."
A costs order de bonis propriis is rarely made. It is a radical order, punitive in nature and conveys the court's disapproval of substantial misconduct by a litigant. The person against whom such an order is made has to pay the costs out of their own pocket. In the case of a state official, the relevant government department would not be held liable to pay the costs order on behalf of such an official.
The lamentable disregard for the Court's orders continued. Judge Bertelsmann: "In spite of this expression of judicial displeasure at the continued failure to comply with the Courts orders, no effect was given to them."
This Act makes provision for claimants lawyers to be paid by the Commission during the restitution process. Funding had been approved years before, but no money had been forthcoming. The Judge noted that this sort of failure is a factor that adversely impacts upon litigants' constitutional right of access to justice.
Constitutional litigation
The Judge observed that, "restitution of land rights is essentially constitutional litigation."
"The Commission is an Organ of State created for the very purpose of safeguarding the constitutional rights of claimants and landowners alike, who both find themselves in litigation with the State and whose interests and competing claims should be treated with due diligence and respect."
Contempt of Court
Judge Bertelsmann considered the defendants' request that a number of Land Claims officials be held in contempt of Court. "Attention must first be paid to the explanation proffered by the State parties for their remissness," he said. He singled out Mr Richard Mulaudzi, a Legal Administrative Officer in the Office of the Regional Land Claims Commissioner for the Limpopo Province.
Mulaudzi, in an affidavit, filed outside of the time limits set by the court, shared his personal views with Judge Steve Kahanovitz, the Judge who heard an earlier aspect of this claim: "I would not serve much purpose for the Commissioners to be deviated by the Court to appear. I did not find any compelling reason [given by Judge Kahanovitz] that necessitated that the Commissioner should be ordered to attend."
"Mr Mulaudzi's remarks regarding the need for the Commissioners to obey the Court's instruction are grossly inappropriate and display an extremely and highly regrettable attitude towards the Court's dignity and authority. Mulaudzi's views regarding the need to obey a Court's order are contemptuous and display an extremely worrisome ignorance of his duties as a civil servant employed by an organ of State toward the Courts in general and toward this Court in this matter in particular. Orders of court must be complied with, regardless as to whether they are issued correctly or otherwise, until they are recalled or set aside. This is a fundamental principle of a democratic constitutional State," said Judge Bertelsmann.
Referring to the time early in 1998 when Louis Luyt subpoenaed former President Nelson Mandela to testify to the South African Rugby Football Union case, Bertelsmann wrote, "Mr Mulaudzi would be well advised to study the example of the first post-apartheid President of the Republic of South Africa."
The Judge was unable to hold the Land Claims officials in contempt on legal technical grounds.
He expressed the Court's displeasure by ordering the Regional Land Claims commissioner to pay the defendants costs on the scale as between attorney and client.
Judge Bertelsmann further ordered that the matter be brought to finality as soon as possible.
We will be following the further progress of this particular land claim. Watch this space.
Source: Politicsweb
Sunday, February 2, 2014
The politics of Mohammed Morsi's trial
The trial of Mohammed Morsi is a political trial designed by the Egyptian authorities to disgrace, delegitimise and dispose of the Muslim Brotherhood from the Egyptian political landscape. In a seminal study widely regarded as the most definitive account of the political trial, the Frankfurt school jurist Otto Kirchheimer regarded the political trial as a strategic mobilisation of the devices of law and justice to attain political ends.
"The classic political trial", Kirchheimer argued, is one in which the regime "attempt[s] to incriminate its foe's public behaviour with a view to evicting him from the political scene". Morsi's trial is a classic political trial designed to evict Morsi and his movement from the Egyptian political space.
Political trials are inevitable consequences of revolutions. From the English and French revolutions the 17th and 18th century to the Chinese and Iranian revolutions in the 20th century, the courtroom provided a convenient space for a ritualised elimination of former regimes.
Courts are mobilised not so much to eliminate the defunct regimes but to clarify, rationalise, justify and finally authenticate the revolution in an act of judgment. This is what is at work in Morsi's trial - the use of the courtroom to validate and authenticate a contested revolution. The court is not concerned with the determination of guilt and innocence so much as the rationalisation and justification of the events of July 3, 2013.
A revolution, not a coup d'etat?
The rhetoric of law and order, terrorism, and national security are all smokescreens for the power struggle between the Muslim Brotherhood and the military-backed regime. Beneath the rhetoric of terrorism and national security, there are the unfathomable purposes of history and power - a history of a botched revolution; conflicting accounts of what happened on 3 July 2013 (a coup d'etat, a counter-revolution or a second revolution); and the violence and crackdown that followed. The trial reduces these complex historico-political events into an either - or binary proposition that fits the self-referential logic of law.
The charges against Morsi and others - "incitement to violence" and "conspiracy to commit terrorism" - are charges carefully chosen to serve as fulcrums - narrative anchors in which to ground the regime's pedagogic stunts. The trial provides the event - the stage, the language, and the choreography - that lends bodily form, as Alexis De Tocqueville once noted, to the pedagogic enterprise.
As a truth-bearing platform with superior ability of image formation and saturation, the trial gives juridical reality and an appearance of neutrality and objectivity to the narrative of the state.
Within its own self-referential logic, the trial weighs the charges, assigns blame and attributes responsibility for the events alleged by the prosecution. It does not take account of the political and historical war that rages just beneath the invocation of its discourses. The objections of Morsi and his co-accused regarding the coup d'etat, the violence of the military, and the criminal origin of the regime are incompatible with "how the law thinks". For the purpose of criminal law, these are "objection[s] that cannot be heard": They do not signify within law's logic, its rationality, and modes of thought.
Order legitimation and power rationalisation
The immediate purpose of the trial is two-fold. Firstly, the trial is the most effective silencing device: By delegating the matter to a sympathetic judiciary, the regime silences all forms of criticism while it neutralises the political field from its adversary. Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, the trial has the aim of rationalising and justifying the coup d'etat by retroactively situating Morsi's defeat within a broader historical, political and moral narrative.
Using its truth-bearing discourses that allow it to create images that can neither be effaced nor rectified, the trial rationalises and justifies the power of the military regime. By presenting the adversary in the worst possible moral and political light, the trial both elaborates and consolidates a historico-political thesis in the image of the military and its civilian elites. What matters is not the validity or meaningfulness of the image so much as its effectiveness.
By accusing and judging the defendants for these crimes, the regime has a didactic goal that far exceeds the elimination of the Muslim Brotherhood: It aims to create a generative politico-historical thesis and an enduring image capable of instilling fear, prudence and obedience in potential foes. By projecting and amplifying a terrorist image of Morsi and his movement in the courtroom, a site of truth and justice supposedly elevated from the expediency of power and politics, the trial vindicates and authenticates a historico-political thesis in the image of the regime.
'I am your president. You have no legitimacy'
However, trials are not chess games that go according to pre-arranged rules. They can denaturalise, as to expose its flimsy facade of legality. In exercising the authority to judge its enemies, it submits itself to the accusation of its adversaries and the judgment of history. Just as the state uses the devices of law as political weapons, Morsi too can turn to these weapons.
The device is not equally available to the state and Morsi, but the deliberative framework of the trial and the principle of calling to account means that the defendant has a speaking position from which he can give an account of himself and the charges. Indeed, if Morsi's first day in court is any indication to go by, his trial could well be the trial of the military regime.
In his first court appearance, Morsi rejected the legitimacy and the authority of the court to try him. He argues that he is "the legitimate president" of the republic and accuses the military of a coup and treason. He challenges the court to justify how an illegal action - a coup d'etat - gives rise to a legal right that enables the criminals to judge an elected president: "This coup is a crime and treasonous, and the court is held responsible for it."
Morsi's defence will ask questions the prosecutor and the court cannot answer legally: According to what law, according to what rule of judgment and principle of justice do the courts and the social order they serve exercise the right to judge and punish an elected president? For Morsi and his supporters, "This is a military coup whose leaders must be put on trial in accordance with the constitution."
If an elected president can be called to the court to account for these acts, what of the military leaders who committed a treasonous offense? In other words, can the military bring Morsi to the court without calling the Revolution to the court? It is this question that law is ultimately incapable of answering without sliding into the abyss, to its origin in self-help. It is also here that the disjuncture between law and revolutions becomes most manifest, exposing the government and its courts to the judgement of history.
Regardless of how the court frames and ultimately settles these destabilising questions, Morsi's trial brings both the military and the revolution into the courtroom. The narratives and the verdict leave behind traces or remainders that cannot be integrated, or contained by the trial. It is this remainder, this excess, that exceeds the trial's ability to conceal and suppress, that returns to haunt Egypt and unsettle it from within.
Awol K Allo is a Fellow in Human Rights at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.
Source: Al Jazeera
"The classic political trial", Kirchheimer argued, is one in which the regime "attempt[s] to incriminate its foe's public behaviour with a view to evicting him from the political scene". Morsi's trial is a classic political trial designed to evict Morsi and his movement from the Egyptian political space.
Political trials are inevitable consequences of revolutions. From the English and French revolutions the 17th and 18th century to the Chinese and Iranian revolutions in the 20th century, the courtroom provided a convenient space for a ritualised elimination of former regimes.
Courts are mobilised not so much to eliminate the defunct regimes but to clarify, rationalise, justify and finally authenticate the revolution in an act of judgment. This is what is at work in Morsi's trial - the use of the courtroom to validate and authenticate a contested revolution. The court is not concerned with the determination of guilt and innocence so much as the rationalisation and justification of the events of July 3, 2013.
A revolution, not a coup d'etat?
The rhetoric of law and order, terrorism, and national security are all smokescreens for the power struggle between the Muslim Brotherhood and the military-backed regime. Beneath the rhetoric of terrorism and national security, there are the unfathomable purposes of history and power - a history of a botched revolution; conflicting accounts of what happened on 3 July 2013 (a coup d'etat, a counter-revolution or a second revolution); and the violence and crackdown that followed. The trial reduces these complex historico-political events into an either - or binary proposition that fits the self-referential logic of law.
The charges against Morsi and others - "incitement to violence" and "conspiracy to commit terrorism" - are charges carefully chosen to serve as fulcrums - narrative anchors in which to ground the regime's pedagogic stunts. The trial provides the event - the stage, the language, and the choreography - that lends bodily form, as Alexis De Tocqueville once noted, to the pedagogic enterprise.
As a truth-bearing platform with superior ability of image formation and saturation, the trial gives juridical reality and an appearance of neutrality and objectivity to the narrative of the state.
Within its own self-referential logic, the trial weighs the charges, assigns blame and attributes responsibility for the events alleged by the prosecution. It does not take account of the political and historical war that rages just beneath the invocation of its discourses. The objections of Morsi and his co-accused regarding the coup d'etat, the violence of the military, and the criminal origin of the regime are incompatible with "how the law thinks". For the purpose of criminal law, these are "objection[s] that cannot be heard": They do not signify within law's logic, its rationality, and modes of thought.
Order legitimation and power rationalisation
The immediate purpose of the trial is two-fold. Firstly, the trial is the most effective silencing device: By delegating the matter to a sympathetic judiciary, the regime silences all forms of criticism while it neutralises the political field from its adversary. Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, the trial has the aim of rationalising and justifying the coup d'etat by retroactively situating Morsi's defeat within a broader historical, political and moral narrative.
Using its truth-bearing discourses that allow it to create images that can neither be effaced nor rectified, the trial rationalises and justifies the power of the military regime. By presenting the adversary in the worst possible moral and political light, the trial both elaborates and consolidates a historico-political thesis in the image of the military and its civilian elites. What matters is not the validity or meaningfulness of the image so much as its effectiveness.
By accusing and judging the defendants for these crimes, the regime has a didactic goal that far exceeds the elimination of the Muslim Brotherhood: It aims to create a generative politico-historical thesis and an enduring image capable of instilling fear, prudence and obedience in potential foes. By projecting and amplifying a terrorist image of Morsi and his movement in the courtroom, a site of truth and justice supposedly elevated from the expediency of power and politics, the trial vindicates and authenticates a historico-political thesis in the image of the regime.
'I am your president. You have no legitimacy'
However, trials are not chess games that go according to pre-arranged rules. They can denaturalise, as to expose its flimsy facade of legality. In exercising the authority to judge its enemies, it submits itself to the accusation of its adversaries and the judgment of history. Just as the state uses the devices of law as political weapons, Morsi too can turn to these weapons.
The device is not equally available to the state and Morsi, but the deliberative framework of the trial and the principle of calling to account means that the defendant has a speaking position from which he can give an account of himself and the charges. Indeed, if Morsi's first day in court is any indication to go by, his trial could well be the trial of the military regime.
In his first court appearance, Morsi rejected the legitimacy and the authority of the court to try him. He argues that he is "the legitimate president" of the republic and accuses the military of a coup and treason. He challenges the court to justify how an illegal action - a coup d'etat - gives rise to a legal right that enables the criminals to judge an elected president: "This coup is a crime and treasonous, and the court is held responsible for it."
Morsi's defence will ask questions the prosecutor and the court cannot answer legally: According to what law, according to what rule of judgment and principle of justice do the courts and the social order they serve exercise the right to judge and punish an elected president? For Morsi and his supporters, "This is a military coup whose leaders must be put on trial in accordance with the constitution."
If an elected president can be called to the court to account for these acts, what of the military leaders who committed a treasonous offense? In other words, can the military bring Morsi to the court without calling the Revolution to the court? It is this question that law is ultimately incapable of answering without sliding into the abyss, to its origin in self-help. It is also here that the disjuncture between law and revolutions becomes most manifest, exposing the government and its courts to the judgement of history.
Regardless of how the court frames and ultimately settles these destabilising questions, Morsi's trial brings both the military and the revolution into the courtroom. The narratives and the verdict leave behind traces or remainders that cannot be integrated, or contained by the trial. It is this remainder, this excess, that exceeds the trial's ability to conceal and suppress, that returns to haunt Egypt and unsettle it from within.
Awol K Allo is a Fellow in Human Rights at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.
Source: Al Jazeera
Friday, January 10, 2014
President Proclaims Civilian Secretariat Commencement
The remaining sections of the Civilian Secretariat for Police Service Act of 2011 that did not come into effect in December 2011 will now come into force on 1 April 2014.
The act seeks to give effect to section 208 of the Constitution by establishing a civilian secretariat tasked with monitoring, assessing and evaluating the performance of the South African Police Service (SAPS).
The minister of police will be responsible for the new secretariat.
Provincial police secretariats will be expected to align their planning and operations with the new national secretariat.
The civilian secretariat will be expected to:
• Exercise civilian oversight over the SAPS
• Advise the minister on developing and implementing policies
• Provide administrative support to the minister
• Communicate with stakeholders
• Form a partnership with stakeholders to improve service delivery by SAPS
• Improve relations between itself and the independent police investigative directorate
In terms of the sections that are to now come into effect, section 4(2) refers to the establishing of the secretariat as a national department while 4(3) deals with the secretary as the accounting officer of the secretariat.
Section 14 focuses on the responsibilities of the secretary in terms of finances and accountability.
The proclamation notice was published in Government Gazette 37151.
Prior to the notice, the presidency had indicated in a statement at the beginning of December that the remaining sections were to commence on 1 April.
Source: SABINET
The act seeks to give effect to section 208 of the Constitution by establishing a civilian secretariat tasked with monitoring, assessing and evaluating the performance of the South African Police Service (SAPS).
The minister of police will be responsible for the new secretariat.
Provincial police secretariats will be expected to align their planning and operations with the new national secretariat.
The civilian secretariat will be expected to:
• Exercise civilian oversight over the SAPS
• Advise the minister on developing and implementing policies
• Provide administrative support to the minister
• Communicate with stakeholders
• Form a partnership with stakeholders to improve service delivery by SAPS
• Improve relations between itself and the independent police investigative directorate
In terms of the sections that are to now come into effect, section 4(2) refers to the establishing of the secretariat as a national department while 4(3) deals with the secretary as the accounting officer of the secretariat.
Section 14 focuses on the responsibilities of the secretary in terms of finances and accountability.
The proclamation notice was published in Government Gazette 37151.
Prior to the notice, the presidency had indicated in a statement at the beginning of December that the remaining sections were to commence on 1 April.
Source: SABINET
Wednesday, January 8, 2014
ANC at 102: when the revolution eats its own children
There are few people who can talk about the state of the ANC without sighing and shaking their heads. The transition from a liberation movement to a political party in government has not been kind – the organisation appears to be on a mission of self-destruction with lure of power and wealth tattering its fibre, and factionalism and patronage constantly diminishing its stature. The ANC has been able to reach the grand age of 102 because of the strength of its leadership and its popularity throughout its lifespan. But now it is difficult to hold up the ANC in 2014 against the organisation with a progression of heroic leaders which took power in 1994. Most bizarre is the way it has turned on itself. By RANJENI MUNUSAMY.
Lieutenant General Sean Tshabalala died of a broken heart. His body was found in his locked office at the police headquarters in Pretoria on Christmas Eve. Tributes at his memorial service and funeral tell the story of a once proud Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) soldier and one of the first line of VIP protectors when the ANC returned from exile, withering in a state of depression after being marginalised by the police management.
A furore erupted after Tshabalala’s funeral where former national police commissioner Bheki Cele revealed a list of 18 names of former MK combatants serving or formerly in the South African Police Service who were allegedly on a target list, presumably of the current national commissioner Riah Phiyega and her political bosses. Tshabalala’s name allegedly topped the list. His friends and former colleagues had earlier told of Tshabalala’s heartbreak at being shifted sideways from Protection and Security Services division of the police to the information technology division and later to a non-job at the police inspectorate.
Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa acted swiftly to meet with some of the people on the list and dismiss the claims as rubbish. Phiyega denied knowledge of the list. However, the perception exists that experienced ANC and MK members were being steadily hounded out of the security services since President Jacob Zuma won power at the ANC’s Polokwane conference.
There has been a deluge of early retirements and resignations from the Department of State Security, the military and the SAPS in recent years, most of which involved people who served in MK or ANC intelligence structures during the liberation struggle. Some of these people went into exile in their teenage years, some were involved in dangerous intelligence missions at great personal cost, some were trained in the camps under the ANC’s most iconic leaders.
Their departure from the security services has been a curious phenomenon. Zuma, formerly head of intelligence in the ANC, has always seen security and intelligence as high priority. But after the recall of Thabo Mbeki, it would seem that paranoia set in and people perceived to be loyal to the former president were systematically weeded out, irrespective of their skills, service to their country with distinction or role in the liberation struggle.
Cele is well aware of the purge because he was instrumental in implementing it while he was national commissioner. In one case, he called a high-ranking officer who was on a mission abroad immediately back to the country and informed him he was being transferred to another job. It did not take long for the officer to resign from the police service. Cele was also the one who transferred Tshabalala out of the Protection and Security Services division.
Tshabalala, unlike most of his comrades, stuck it out in the police despite being sidelined – a decision which probably eventually cost him his life. Shortly before his death, Tshabalala had received a letter transferring him to the Northern Cape province (viewed as the Siberia of deployments), and this is possibly the reason his depression became too much to bear.
Tshabalala is just one of many of people whose lives have been destroyed by the organisation they dedicated their lives to. Others have been able to move on with their lives but their disillusionment with the ANC is profound. For many of them, the ANC was not just a political organisation but a way of life, a reason for being. To see the organisation self-destruct is worse than a family feud or divorce because they had chosen the ANC over their families and their own safety when they joined the struggle.
There are various explanations for the purge. The first is that ANC people in the security services would refuse to use state institutions to fight power battles in the party. There is always the risk that loyalty to the ANC would outweigh loyalty to the individual in power, which could lead to instructions being ignored, undermined or disclosed. The theory goes that this is why Zuma and Mthethwa saw use in Richard Mdluli – as a person who worked for the apartheid era police, he has no affiliation to the ANC and is loyal only to those who pay his salary.
The second theory is that the security ministers felt threatened by the seniority, knowledge and experience of the commanders serving under them. In terms of ANC hierarchy, many of the officials were senior to the current batch of ministers and this was a source of tension, particularly when there were differences of opinion on operational issues. But while there might have been underlying resentment, it would be strange if Zuma allowed the security services to be depleted of loyal and experienced officials on the basis of his ministers' inferiority complexes.
The third theory is more complex. A former senior member of the security services says the success of South Africa’s transition was partly due to the fact that security of the country was in the hands of the “doves”.
“This ensured that national security was based on human security. Now the focus is on state security. For the first time, security is now in the hands of the ‘hawks’, just like during the Apartheid era when the hawks saw a red (communists) under every bed. So we have come full circle with the hawks again in charge,” he said.
He said the current crop of hawks are fixated on external threats to the country, such as from foreign governments, imperialist forces and lobby groups, and they trade on conspiracy theories. “The real threats to the country are unemployment, inequality and poverty, and our failure to deliver. But anyone who puts forward that view is hounded out, marginalised or made redundant.
“They do not want to hear about our own failures; they prefer nonsensical stories about plots against the president, like what was in the Mdluli report. The plot is the failure of delivery. That is the biggest threat to national security,” the retired member said.
The theory is consistent with how the state and ANC views the personal security of the president and the state as interchangeable – as exemplified by the handling of the issue of the security upgrades at Zuma’s Nkandla estate. But the retired security official says people often overlook how the Constitution defines the governing principles around national security: “National security must reflect the resolve of South Africans, as individuals and as a nation, to live as equals, to live in peace and harmony, to be free from fear and want and to seek a better life”.
The Constitution says nothing about the President and his Cabinet receiving special protection in their homes and cars as a principle of national security but dictates that ordinary people should be “free from fear”. It would appear that the organisation which drafted this Constitution has these days lost sight of these principles.
To the ANC at 102, it would seem, people, even their most experienced and dedicated comrades, are expendable. It has become a pattern that factional battles need to be fought till one group is hounded out and the organisation belongs only to the victors. From branch to national level, battles are fought for dominance of leadership positions, and those who lose are treated as pariahs and purged from positions in the state.
At the ANC national conferences, voting for the top six positions and the national executive committee takes place according to slates, dependent only according to loyalty to those who control the faction. As a result, the organisation is controlled by the winning faction and those outside the faction are marginalised, irrespective of their seniority, credentials or what they have to offer the party or the country.
Both Mbeki and Zuma appear to believe that the best way to protect their presidencies is to surround themselves with loyalists who tell them what they want to hear and fight off dissent on their behalf. It is this very tendency which builds resentment in the ANC and leads bad decision-making.
As the ANC celebrates its 102nd anniversary, it is also in the process of compiling its lists of representatives to serve in Parliament and the provincial legislatures. The list process is also likely to be defined by factional politics, with loyalists able to get higher on the lists and stand a better chance of becoming a member of Parliament. Those who refrain from factional battles or who campaigned against Zuma’s second term at the ANC’s Mangaung conference are less likely to be elected.
But there are also a number of people who are declining nomination because they cannot in good conscience agree to serve the ANC in its current state. “It is a bloody nightmare for us,” said one high-ranking member who has declined nomination.
He said if the party was serious about its future and that of the country, they would ask the president and other ANC leaders steeped in scandal to step aside. “But in the NEC, few can stand up and impose their integrity. The rest will be found wanting themselves,” he said.
Others, however, believe that they should remain in the fold and the ANC will self correct at its next conference in 2017. But what is the likelihood of it and how much damage would have been done by then? With the organisation a shadow of its former self now, what will it look like with four years still to go under the current leadership?
Despite the many problems in the ANC, there are only few people who are able to speak up and confront the issues besetting the organisation. The leadership seems to believe that the organisation is resilient and can withstand the scandals and strife. And those who do speak out are treated as disgruntled elements that should be disregarded. ANC and South African Communist Party veteran Ronnie Kasrils wrote in The Guardian last year: “The ANC's soul needs to be restored; its traditional values and culture of service reinstated. The pact with the devil needs to be broken”.
The ANC simply ignored him.
And so, Africa’s oldest liberation movement turns 102 on Wednesday. It is a momentous occasion for the organisation with a proud history and iconic leaders to still be going strong and enjoying the support of the majority of South Africans. While the current leaders mark the occasion with celebratory rallies, doubling as campaign events, many people will be looking on from the outside, mourning for days gone by when the ANC was a home for all.
Perhaps it is normal for any political organisation to find itself unable to keep its soul once it gets touched by the spoils of uninterrupted power. It has happened many times before, and it will happen many times in the future. What is surprising, though, is how history always fails to teach the ones at the top. At 102, the ANC is drifting into the darkness, increasingly disconnected from the lives and reality of those they are sworn to protect: the masses that continue to exist in the tough reality and fearing a hopeless future. DM
Source: Daily Maverick
Lieutenant General Sean Tshabalala died of a broken heart. His body was found in his locked office at the police headquarters in Pretoria on Christmas Eve. Tributes at his memorial service and funeral tell the story of a once proud Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) soldier and one of the first line of VIP protectors when the ANC returned from exile, withering in a state of depression after being marginalised by the police management.
A furore erupted after Tshabalala’s funeral where former national police commissioner Bheki Cele revealed a list of 18 names of former MK combatants serving or formerly in the South African Police Service who were allegedly on a target list, presumably of the current national commissioner Riah Phiyega and her political bosses. Tshabalala’s name allegedly topped the list. His friends and former colleagues had earlier told of Tshabalala’s heartbreak at being shifted sideways from Protection and Security Services division of the police to the information technology division and later to a non-job at the police inspectorate.
Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa acted swiftly to meet with some of the people on the list and dismiss the claims as rubbish. Phiyega denied knowledge of the list. However, the perception exists that experienced ANC and MK members were being steadily hounded out of the security services since President Jacob Zuma won power at the ANC’s Polokwane conference.
There has been a deluge of early retirements and resignations from the Department of State Security, the military and the SAPS in recent years, most of which involved people who served in MK or ANC intelligence structures during the liberation struggle. Some of these people went into exile in their teenage years, some were involved in dangerous intelligence missions at great personal cost, some were trained in the camps under the ANC’s most iconic leaders.
Their departure from the security services has been a curious phenomenon. Zuma, formerly head of intelligence in the ANC, has always seen security and intelligence as high priority. But after the recall of Thabo Mbeki, it would seem that paranoia set in and people perceived to be loyal to the former president were systematically weeded out, irrespective of their skills, service to their country with distinction or role in the liberation struggle.
Cele is well aware of the purge because he was instrumental in implementing it while he was national commissioner. In one case, he called a high-ranking officer who was on a mission abroad immediately back to the country and informed him he was being transferred to another job. It did not take long for the officer to resign from the police service. Cele was also the one who transferred Tshabalala out of the Protection and Security Services division.
Tshabalala, unlike most of his comrades, stuck it out in the police despite being sidelined – a decision which probably eventually cost him his life. Shortly before his death, Tshabalala had received a letter transferring him to the Northern Cape province (viewed as the Siberia of deployments), and this is possibly the reason his depression became too much to bear.
Tshabalala is just one of many of people whose lives have been destroyed by the organisation they dedicated their lives to. Others have been able to move on with their lives but their disillusionment with the ANC is profound. For many of them, the ANC was not just a political organisation but a way of life, a reason for being. To see the organisation self-destruct is worse than a family feud or divorce because they had chosen the ANC over their families and their own safety when they joined the struggle.
There are various explanations for the purge. The first is that ANC people in the security services would refuse to use state institutions to fight power battles in the party. There is always the risk that loyalty to the ANC would outweigh loyalty to the individual in power, which could lead to instructions being ignored, undermined or disclosed. The theory goes that this is why Zuma and Mthethwa saw use in Richard Mdluli – as a person who worked for the apartheid era police, he has no affiliation to the ANC and is loyal only to those who pay his salary.
The second theory is that the security ministers felt threatened by the seniority, knowledge and experience of the commanders serving under them. In terms of ANC hierarchy, many of the officials were senior to the current batch of ministers and this was a source of tension, particularly when there were differences of opinion on operational issues. But while there might have been underlying resentment, it would be strange if Zuma allowed the security services to be depleted of loyal and experienced officials on the basis of his ministers' inferiority complexes.
The third theory is more complex. A former senior member of the security services says the success of South Africa’s transition was partly due to the fact that security of the country was in the hands of the “doves”.
“This ensured that national security was based on human security. Now the focus is on state security. For the first time, security is now in the hands of the ‘hawks’, just like during the Apartheid era when the hawks saw a red (communists) under every bed. So we have come full circle with the hawks again in charge,” he said.
He said the current crop of hawks are fixated on external threats to the country, such as from foreign governments, imperialist forces and lobby groups, and they trade on conspiracy theories. “The real threats to the country are unemployment, inequality and poverty, and our failure to deliver. But anyone who puts forward that view is hounded out, marginalised or made redundant.
“They do not want to hear about our own failures; they prefer nonsensical stories about plots against the president, like what was in the Mdluli report. The plot is the failure of delivery. That is the biggest threat to national security,” the retired member said.
The theory is consistent with how the state and ANC views the personal security of the president and the state as interchangeable – as exemplified by the handling of the issue of the security upgrades at Zuma’s Nkandla estate. But the retired security official says people often overlook how the Constitution defines the governing principles around national security: “National security must reflect the resolve of South Africans, as individuals and as a nation, to live as equals, to live in peace and harmony, to be free from fear and want and to seek a better life”.
The Constitution says nothing about the President and his Cabinet receiving special protection in their homes and cars as a principle of national security but dictates that ordinary people should be “free from fear”. It would appear that the organisation which drafted this Constitution has these days lost sight of these principles.
To the ANC at 102, it would seem, people, even their most experienced and dedicated comrades, are expendable. It has become a pattern that factional battles need to be fought till one group is hounded out and the organisation belongs only to the victors. From branch to national level, battles are fought for dominance of leadership positions, and those who lose are treated as pariahs and purged from positions in the state.
At the ANC national conferences, voting for the top six positions and the national executive committee takes place according to slates, dependent only according to loyalty to those who control the faction. As a result, the organisation is controlled by the winning faction and those outside the faction are marginalised, irrespective of their seniority, credentials or what they have to offer the party or the country.
Both Mbeki and Zuma appear to believe that the best way to protect their presidencies is to surround themselves with loyalists who tell them what they want to hear and fight off dissent on their behalf. It is this very tendency which builds resentment in the ANC and leads bad decision-making.
As the ANC celebrates its 102nd anniversary, it is also in the process of compiling its lists of representatives to serve in Parliament and the provincial legislatures. The list process is also likely to be defined by factional politics, with loyalists able to get higher on the lists and stand a better chance of becoming a member of Parliament. Those who refrain from factional battles or who campaigned against Zuma’s second term at the ANC’s Mangaung conference are less likely to be elected.
But there are also a number of people who are declining nomination because they cannot in good conscience agree to serve the ANC in its current state. “It is a bloody nightmare for us,” said one high-ranking member who has declined nomination.
He said if the party was serious about its future and that of the country, they would ask the president and other ANC leaders steeped in scandal to step aside. “But in the NEC, few can stand up and impose their integrity. The rest will be found wanting themselves,” he said.
Others, however, believe that they should remain in the fold and the ANC will self correct at its next conference in 2017. But what is the likelihood of it and how much damage would have been done by then? With the organisation a shadow of its former self now, what will it look like with four years still to go under the current leadership?
Despite the many problems in the ANC, there are only few people who are able to speak up and confront the issues besetting the organisation. The leadership seems to believe that the organisation is resilient and can withstand the scandals and strife. And those who do speak out are treated as disgruntled elements that should be disregarded. ANC and South African Communist Party veteran Ronnie Kasrils wrote in The Guardian last year: “The ANC's soul needs to be restored; its traditional values and culture of service reinstated. The pact with the devil needs to be broken”.
The ANC simply ignored him.
And so, Africa’s oldest liberation movement turns 102 on Wednesday. It is a momentous occasion for the organisation with a proud history and iconic leaders to still be going strong and enjoying the support of the majority of South Africans. While the current leaders mark the occasion with celebratory rallies, doubling as campaign events, many people will be looking on from the outside, mourning for days gone by when the ANC was a home for all.
Perhaps it is normal for any political organisation to find itself unable to keep its soul once it gets touched by the spoils of uninterrupted power. It has happened many times before, and it will happen many times in the future. What is surprising, though, is how history always fails to teach the ones at the top. At 102, the ANC is drifting into the darkness, increasingly disconnected from the lives and reality of those they are sworn to protect: the masses that continue to exist in the tough reality and fearing a hopeless future. DM
Source: Daily Maverick
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
Why the matric pass rate is not a reliable benchmark of education quality
Jacob Zuma has hailed the matric pass rate as a “significant improvement”. But is the education system “on the right track”? As we discovered, matric results are not a reliable barometer of education quality.
For the fifth year in a row, South Africa’s education authorities have announced dramatic improvements in the matric pass rate.
“[W]e are sending a strong message that basic education under the new administration has the capacity to improve the quality of education in South Africa,” Angie Motshekga, the Minister of Basic Education, said this week as she made the announcement.
“[T]his is the best matric class since 1994,” South African president Jacob Zuma enthused. “We are…pleased to note this consistently upward trend in the matric results, with the pass rate going from 62.6% in 2008, dipping to 60.6% in 2009, only to rise to 67.8% in 2010, 70.2% in 2011 and 73.9% in 2012.” (Note: It hasn’t been entirely consistent. As Zuma himself pointed out, the pass rate fell by two percent in 2009)
A ‘massive fraud’
South African children attend school on March 13, 2009 under a tree in the Eastern Cape village of Libode. Others have been far less complimentary.
In a scathing opinion piece, Jonathan Jansen, the vice-chancellor of the University of the Free State and a prominent commentator on education, wrote that the country’s education system was a “massive fraud”.
Government “wrongly, but conveniently” used the matric results as “a barometer of the state of the school system” when all other data “reveal we have been stagnating, or doing worse”, Jansen argued.
The opposition Democratic Alliance has called on Motshekga to “institute a full-scale independent audit of the 2013 results”, citing concerns over the quality of the markers, the process of moderation and the high dropout rate.
‘On the right track’
While conceding that there is “still a lot of work that needs to be done”, Motshekga remains adamant that education in South Africa is on the “right track”.
Addressing a business briefing hosted by The New Age newspaper yesterday, Motshekga said that the pass rate – which has improved from 60.9% in 2009 to 78.2% in 2013 – is “an indication that indeed the system is on the right track”.
She also claimed that “[t]here is overwhelming evidence that we are improving learner performance”.
Is the system really on the right path? And has the quality of education in South Africa improved along with the pass rate?
Minister contradicted by her own department
South African Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga with President Jacob Zuma at the European Union headquarters in Brussels. For starters, Motshekga’s claim that the increase in the pass rate “is an indication that indeed the system is on the right track” is contradicted by her own department.
The department of basic education states on its website that “[c]ontrary to popular belief, the matric pass rate on its own is not a good measure of academic achievement in the schooling system, nor was the pass rate ever designed for this”. Rather, the pass rate serves as a “measure of the opportunities open to our youths”.
It goes on to add: “Comparing pass rates in different years is in fact not like comparing apples to apples… Examinations like our matric are simply not designed to compare the performance of the schooling system across years. They are designed to test whether the individual learner qualifies for a certificate, based on the subjects the learner has chosen.”
The department suggests that “[i]f one wants to compare how well the system is doing, one should turn to testing systems like the international TIMSS and SACMEQ programmes, where South Africa has participated for some years.”
High dropout rate skews results
A further flaw in using the matric pass rate as a barometer of national performance is that thousands of school pupils drop out long before they reach their final year. The dropout rate is not taken into account in the final pass rate.
For example, when the 2013 matric class started grade one in 2002, there were 1,261,827 pupils. But by the time they came to sit for their final exams, their numbers had fallen to 562,112.
Nicholas Spaull, a researcher at Stellenbosch University who focuses on primary education, says that “students are pushed through the system until grade 10, and then schools realise that if they put these kids through, they are not going to pass grade 12”.
“Getting low pass rates in matric is problematic for schools, so they weed out these students.”
The ‘culling process’
A group of schoolchildren in central Pretoria. Photo: AFP/Alexander JoeThe matric rate is thus bumped up and gives no indication of how the 50% that fall by the wayside are doing. Jansen, in his opinion piece, called it a “culling process” that has left behind half a million people with little or no proper education.
Mary Metcalfe, former head of the Wits University School of Education and a former provincial government minister for education in South Africa’s Gauteng province, echoes these concerns. “[The pass rate] doesn’t tell us about the large number of children who didn’t make matric, who didn’t pass grade ten, who didn’t pass grade 11 and who failed at grade 12,” she said.
The dropout rate has had a significant impact. A 2011 report revealed that “60% of youths are left with no qualification at all beyond the Grade 9 level”.
Pupils are choosing easier subjects
Whether as a result of school pressure or individual choice, pupils are increasingly taking easier subjects.
In 2010, 263,034 full-time pupils wrote mathematics. This decreased to 241,509 pupils in 2013. Conversely, numbers of full-time pupils writing mathematical literacy, the easier subject, increased from 280,836 in 2010 to 324,097 in 2013.
The department of basic education acknowledges the impact this has on the final pass rate. “A key factor is the spread of learners across subjects. When this changes, the pass rate can change, even if performance in individual subjects remains the same. In particular, if learners move to easier subjects, more learners pass.”
Good performances skew the average
The matric results also conceal the underperformance of the majority of pupils who write the examination. Strong performances in a minority of schools will mask the poor performance of the majority of schools that are judged as dysfunctional.
This skews the average, and does not present a true reflection of the mean for most pupils. This point was also highlighted in Jansen’s criticism of the matric results. “[I]f you removed the top 20% of schools – mainly former white, privileged schools – from the national averages, then a very dark picture emerges of a mainly black and poor school system performing far below what the combined results show,” he wrote.
Conclusion – Matric pass rate doesn’t mean education is on the right track
The improvement in the matric pass rate is good news for those concerned, but it is not a sign that the “system is on the right track”, nor that the quality of the education system is improving. An Africa Check report looking at claims made about the 2012 matric results came to the same conclusions.
The matric results are not a good measure of academic achievement in the education system. As the department has acknowledged, they are not designed for yearly comparison or to be a reflection of academic achievement in the education system. The good performance of a minority of schools can also skew the results, as can pupils electing to take easier subjects.
The results only account for about half of those who entered school together. South Africa’s high dropout rate means that many young people will never get the chance to write their matric examinations, let alone pass them.
Source: Africa Check
For the fifth year in a row, South Africa’s education authorities have announced dramatic improvements in the matric pass rate.
“[W]e are sending a strong message that basic education under the new administration has the capacity to improve the quality of education in South Africa,” Angie Motshekga, the Minister of Basic Education, said this week as she made the announcement.
“[T]his is the best matric class since 1994,” South African president Jacob Zuma enthused. “We are…pleased to note this consistently upward trend in the matric results, with the pass rate going from 62.6% in 2008, dipping to 60.6% in 2009, only to rise to 67.8% in 2010, 70.2% in 2011 and 73.9% in 2012.” (Note: It hasn’t been entirely consistent. As Zuma himself pointed out, the pass rate fell by two percent in 2009)
A ‘massive fraud’
South African children attend school on March 13, 2009 under a tree in the Eastern Cape village of Libode. Others have been far less complimentary.
In a scathing opinion piece, Jonathan Jansen, the vice-chancellor of the University of the Free State and a prominent commentator on education, wrote that the country’s education system was a “massive fraud”.
Government “wrongly, but conveniently” used the matric results as “a barometer of the state of the school system” when all other data “reveal we have been stagnating, or doing worse”, Jansen argued.
The opposition Democratic Alliance has called on Motshekga to “institute a full-scale independent audit of the 2013 results”, citing concerns over the quality of the markers, the process of moderation and the high dropout rate.
‘On the right track’
While conceding that there is “still a lot of work that needs to be done”, Motshekga remains adamant that education in South Africa is on the “right track”.
Addressing a business briefing hosted by The New Age newspaper yesterday, Motshekga said that the pass rate – which has improved from 60.9% in 2009 to 78.2% in 2013 – is “an indication that indeed the system is on the right track”.
She also claimed that “[t]here is overwhelming evidence that we are improving learner performance”.
Is the system really on the right path? And has the quality of education in South Africa improved along with the pass rate?
Minister contradicted by her own department
South African Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga with President Jacob Zuma at the European Union headquarters in Brussels. For starters, Motshekga’s claim that the increase in the pass rate “is an indication that indeed the system is on the right track” is contradicted by her own department.
The department of basic education states on its website that “[c]ontrary to popular belief, the matric pass rate on its own is not a good measure of academic achievement in the schooling system, nor was the pass rate ever designed for this”. Rather, the pass rate serves as a “measure of the opportunities open to our youths”.
It goes on to add: “Comparing pass rates in different years is in fact not like comparing apples to apples… Examinations like our matric are simply not designed to compare the performance of the schooling system across years. They are designed to test whether the individual learner qualifies for a certificate, based on the subjects the learner has chosen.”
The department suggests that “[i]f one wants to compare how well the system is doing, one should turn to testing systems like the international TIMSS and SACMEQ programmes, where South Africa has participated for some years.”
High dropout rate skews results
A further flaw in using the matric pass rate as a barometer of national performance is that thousands of school pupils drop out long before they reach their final year. The dropout rate is not taken into account in the final pass rate.
For example, when the 2013 matric class started grade one in 2002, there were 1,261,827 pupils. But by the time they came to sit for their final exams, their numbers had fallen to 562,112.
Nicholas Spaull, a researcher at Stellenbosch University who focuses on primary education, says that “students are pushed through the system until grade 10, and then schools realise that if they put these kids through, they are not going to pass grade 12”.
“Getting low pass rates in matric is problematic for schools, so they weed out these students.”
The ‘culling process’
A group of schoolchildren in central Pretoria. Photo: AFP/Alexander JoeThe matric rate is thus bumped up and gives no indication of how the 50% that fall by the wayside are doing. Jansen, in his opinion piece, called it a “culling process” that has left behind half a million people with little or no proper education.
Mary Metcalfe, former head of the Wits University School of Education and a former provincial government minister for education in South Africa’s Gauteng province, echoes these concerns. “[The pass rate] doesn’t tell us about the large number of children who didn’t make matric, who didn’t pass grade ten, who didn’t pass grade 11 and who failed at grade 12,” she said.
The dropout rate has had a significant impact. A 2011 report revealed that “60% of youths are left with no qualification at all beyond the Grade 9 level”.
Pupils are choosing easier subjects
Whether as a result of school pressure or individual choice, pupils are increasingly taking easier subjects.
In 2010, 263,034 full-time pupils wrote mathematics. This decreased to 241,509 pupils in 2013. Conversely, numbers of full-time pupils writing mathematical literacy, the easier subject, increased from 280,836 in 2010 to 324,097 in 2013.
The department of basic education acknowledges the impact this has on the final pass rate. “A key factor is the spread of learners across subjects. When this changes, the pass rate can change, even if performance in individual subjects remains the same. In particular, if learners move to easier subjects, more learners pass.”
Good performances skew the average
The matric results also conceal the underperformance of the majority of pupils who write the examination. Strong performances in a minority of schools will mask the poor performance of the majority of schools that are judged as dysfunctional.
This skews the average, and does not present a true reflection of the mean for most pupils. This point was also highlighted in Jansen’s criticism of the matric results. “[I]f you removed the top 20% of schools – mainly former white, privileged schools – from the national averages, then a very dark picture emerges of a mainly black and poor school system performing far below what the combined results show,” he wrote.
Conclusion – Matric pass rate doesn’t mean education is on the right track
The improvement in the matric pass rate is good news for those concerned, but it is not a sign that the “system is on the right track”, nor that the quality of the education system is improving. An Africa Check report looking at claims made about the 2012 matric results came to the same conclusions.
The matric results are not a good measure of academic achievement in the education system. As the department has acknowledged, they are not designed for yearly comparison or to be a reflection of academic achievement in the education system. The good performance of a minority of schools can also skew the results, as can pupils electing to take easier subjects.
The results only account for about half of those who entered school together. South Africa’s high dropout rate means that many young people will never get the chance to write their matric examinations, let alone pass them.
Source: Africa Check
Africa Loses Billions in Potential Trade Earnings, Falls Short of Vast Promise in Cross-Border Business
Press Release No:2012/239/AFR
Washington, February 7, 2012 – With African leaders now calling for a continental free trade area by 2017 to boost trade within the continent, a new World Bank report shows how African countries are losing out on billions of dollars in potential trade earnings every year because of high trade barriers with neighboring countries, and that it is easier for Africa to trade with the rest of the world than with itself.
According to the new report―De-Fragmenting Africa: Deepening Regional Trade Integration in Goods and Services―regional fragmentation could become even more costly for the continent with new World Bank forecasts suggesting that economic slowdown in the Eurozone could shave Africa’s growth by up to 1.3 percentage points this year. As the authors write, “while uncertainty surrounds the global economy and stagnation is likely to continue in traditional markets in Europe and North America, enormous opportunities for cross-border trade within Africa in food products, basic manufactures and services remain unexploited.”
The reports says this situation deprives the continent of new sources of economic growth, new jobs, and sharply falling poverty, factors which accompanied significant trade integration in East Asia and other regions. The cross-border production networks that have spurred economic dynamism in other regions, especially East Asia, have yet to materialize in Africa.
“It is clear that Africa is not reaching its potential for regional trade, despite the fact that its benefits are enormous—they create larger markets, help countries diversify their economies, reduce costs, improve productivity and help reduce poverty.” says Obiageli "Oby" Ezekwesili, The World Bank’s Vice President for Africa, and a former Nigerian Minister of Extractive Industries. “Yet trade and non-trade barriers remain significant and fall most heavily and disproportionately on poor traders, most of whom are women. African leaders must now back aspiration with action and work together to align the policies, institutions and investments needed to unblock these barriers and to create a dynamic regional market on a scale worthy of Africa’s one billion people and its roughly $2 trillion economy."
In a special World Bank video produced for the report, women traders on the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and neighboring countries in the Great Lakes region describe how they routinely encounter violence, threats, demands for bribes, and sexual harassment, at the hands of the large numbers of customs and other government officials at the border. As one egg and sugar trader from Goma says on the video: “I buy my eggs in Rwanda; as soon as I cross to Congo I give one egg to every official who asks me. Some days I give away more than 30 eggs!”
Barriers blunt trade in goods as well as services
The report says that until the onset of the financial crisis, most sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries grew rapidly and often at much higher rates than the world average. Economic growth in these countries was robust and driven by the boom in commodity prices, which led to very high growth in export values, especially for minerals, to new fast-growing markets such as India and China.
While exports have grown strongly over the last decade, and the region’s trade has recovered well from the global crisis, the impact on unemployment and poverty has been disappointing in many countries. Unemployment remains around 24 percent in South Africa. In Tanzania, extreme income-poverty appears to have remained broadly constant at around 35 percent of the population. This shows that export growth has typically been fueled by a small number of mineral and primary products with limited impacts on the wider economy and that formal sectors remain small in many countries.
As a result, the report suggests that Africa will have to diversify its exports from depending solely on precious metals and other commodities and encourage more people to trade goods and professional services in accounting, law, education, healthcare, among others. The region’s large number of young people also calls for significant numbers of new jobs, intensive trade, and growth.
“Imagine the benefits of allowing African doctors, nurses, teacher, engineers and lawyers to practice anywhere in the continent, but responsibility for making this happen lies with countries first and foremost,” says Marcelo Giugale, the World Bank’s Africa Director for Poverty Reduction and Economic Management. “The final prize is clear: helping Africans trade goods and services with each other. Few contributions carry more development power than that.”
Changes are needed in three areas
To escape the current straightjacket of trade fragmentation, the report says that African leaders, need to pursue changes in three key areas.
1. Improving cross-border trade, especially by small poor traders, many of whom are women, by simplifying border procedures, limiting the number of agencies at the border and increasing the professionalism of officials, supporting traders associations, improving the flow of information on market opportunities, and assisting in the spread of new technologies such as cross-border mobile banking that improve access to finance.
2. Removing a range of non-tariff barriers to trade, such as restrictive rules of origin, import and export bans, and onerous and costly import and export licensing procedures
3. Reforming regulations and immigration rules that limit the substantial potential for cross-border trade and investment in services.
In one notable example of trade barriers, report co-editors Paul Brenton and Gozde Isik of the World Bank describe how the South African supermarket chain Shoprite spends US$20,000 a week on import permits to distribute meat, milk, and plant-based goods to its stores in Zambia alone. For all countries it operates in, approximately 100 (single entry) import permits are applied for every week; this can rise up to 300 per week in peak periods. As a result of these and other requirements, there can be up to 1,600 documents accompanying each truck Shoprite sends with a load that crosses a border in the region.
As the co-editors write, “lack of coordination across government ministries and regulatory authorities also causes significant delays, particularly in authorizing trade for new products. Another South African retailer took three years to get permission to export processed beef and pork from South Africa to Zambia.”
How the World Bank supports regional integration
Trade and regional integration are core elements of the Bank’s new Africa strategy, launched in March 2011, to help countries create opportunities for their transformation and sustained growth. The Bank has doubled its investment in regional integration from US$2.1 billion in 2008 to US$4.2 billion in July 2011, and it will rise to $5.7 billion by July 2012.
Source: World Bank
Washington, February 7, 2012 – With African leaders now calling for a continental free trade area by 2017 to boost trade within the continent, a new World Bank report shows how African countries are losing out on billions of dollars in potential trade earnings every year because of high trade barriers with neighboring countries, and that it is easier for Africa to trade with the rest of the world than with itself.
According to the new report―De-Fragmenting Africa: Deepening Regional Trade Integration in Goods and Services―regional fragmentation could become even more costly for the continent with new World Bank forecasts suggesting that economic slowdown in the Eurozone could shave Africa’s growth by up to 1.3 percentage points this year. As the authors write, “while uncertainty surrounds the global economy and stagnation is likely to continue in traditional markets in Europe and North America, enormous opportunities for cross-border trade within Africa in food products, basic manufactures and services remain unexploited.”
The reports says this situation deprives the continent of new sources of economic growth, new jobs, and sharply falling poverty, factors which accompanied significant trade integration in East Asia and other regions. The cross-border production networks that have spurred economic dynamism in other regions, especially East Asia, have yet to materialize in Africa.
“It is clear that Africa is not reaching its potential for regional trade, despite the fact that its benefits are enormous—they create larger markets, help countries diversify their economies, reduce costs, improve productivity and help reduce poverty.” says Obiageli "Oby" Ezekwesili, The World Bank’s Vice President for Africa, and a former Nigerian Minister of Extractive Industries. “Yet trade and non-trade barriers remain significant and fall most heavily and disproportionately on poor traders, most of whom are women. African leaders must now back aspiration with action and work together to align the policies, institutions and investments needed to unblock these barriers and to create a dynamic regional market on a scale worthy of Africa’s one billion people and its roughly $2 trillion economy."
In a special World Bank video produced for the report, women traders on the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and neighboring countries in the Great Lakes region describe how they routinely encounter violence, threats, demands for bribes, and sexual harassment, at the hands of the large numbers of customs and other government officials at the border. As one egg and sugar trader from Goma says on the video: “I buy my eggs in Rwanda; as soon as I cross to Congo I give one egg to every official who asks me. Some days I give away more than 30 eggs!”
Barriers blunt trade in goods as well as services
The report says that until the onset of the financial crisis, most sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries grew rapidly and often at much higher rates than the world average. Economic growth in these countries was robust and driven by the boom in commodity prices, which led to very high growth in export values, especially for minerals, to new fast-growing markets such as India and China.
While exports have grown strongly over the last decade, and the region’s trade has recovered well from the global crisis, the impact on unemployment and poverty has been disappointing in many countries. Unemployment remains around 24 percent in South Africa. In Tanzania, extreme income-poverty appears to have remained broadly constant at around 35 percent of the population. This shows that export growth has typically been fueled by a small number of mineral and primary products with limited impacts on the wider economy and that formal sectors remain small in many countries.
As a result, the report suggests that Africa will have to diversify its exports from depending solely on precious metals and other commodities and encourage more people to trade goods and professional services in accounting, law, education, healthcare, among others. The region’s large number of young people also calls for significant numbers of new jobs, intensive trade, and growth.
“Imagine the benefits of allowing African doctors, nurses, teacher, engineers and lawyers to practice anywhere in the continent, but responsibility for making this happen lies with countries first and foremost,” says Marcelo Giugale, the World Bank’s Africa Director for Poverty Reduction and Economic Management. “The final prize is clear: helping Africans trade goods and services with each other. Few contributions carry more development power than that.”
Changes are needed in three areas
To escape the current straightjacket of trade fragmentation, the report says that African leaders, need to pursue changes in three key areas.
1. Improving cross-border trade, especially by small poor traders, many of whom are women, by simplifying border procedures, limiting the number of agencies at the border and increasing the professionalism of officials, supporting traders associations, improving the flow of information on market opportunities, and assisting in the spread of new technologies such as cross-border mobile banking that improve access to finance.
2. Removing a range of non-tariff barriers to trade, such as restrictive rules of origin, import and export bans, and onerous and costly import and export licensing procedures
3. Reforming regulations and immigration rules that limit the substantial potential for cross-border trade and investment in services.
In one notable example of trade barriers, report co-editors Paul Brenton and Gozde Isik of the World Bank describe how the South African supermarket chain Shoprite spends US$20,000 a week on import permits to distribute meat, milk, and plant-based goods to its stores in Zambia alone. For all countries it operates in, approximately 100 (single entry) import permits are applied for every week; this can rise up to 300 per week in peak periods. As a result of these and other requirements, there can be up to 1,600 documents accompanying each truck Shoprite sends with a load that crosses a border in the region.
As the co-editors write, “lack of coordination across government ministries and regulatory authorities also causes significant delays, particularly in authorizing trade for new products. Another South African retailer took three years to get permission to export processed beef and pork from South Africa to Zambia.”
How the World Bank supports regional integration
Trade and regional integration are core elements of the Bank’s new Africa strategy, launched in March 2011, to help countries create opportunities for their transformation and sustained growth. The Bank has doubled its investment in regional integration from US$2.1 billion in 2008 to US$4.2 billion in July 2011, and it will rise to $5.7 billion by July 2012.
Source: World Bank
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Antony Jenkins admits 'it could take 10 years to rebuild trust in Barclays'
Barclays’ chief executive, Antony Jenkins, has said that it could take up to a decade for the bank to regain public trust in the aftermath of a series of scandals.
Mr Jenkins made the comment in a speech to students at Brooke House Sixth Form College in East London.
In the chat, which was broadcast on this morning's Today programme on BBC Radio 4, Mr Jenkins said: “Trust is a very easy thing to lose, and a very hard thing to win back.
"In my view it will takes several years - probably five to ten - to rebuilt trust in Barclays."
Barclays was the first bank to be implicated in the Libor scandal, in which traders rigged the London inter-banking rate, leading to a £290 million fine in June 2012, and the bank was also involved in the PPI mis-selling scandal.
Mr Jenkins vowed to restore Barclay’s reputation when he was made CEO in August last year, after the Libor scandal brought down his predecessor, Bob Diamond. In February he revealed his plan to overhaul the bank by fundamentally changing the culture under which its traders operate.
He added in his speech that he hoped the future actions of Barclays would help rebuild confidence in the wider banking sector.
Mr Jenkins chose as his theme “the importance of long-term thinking and planning, and proper leadership”.
“Trust is lost in weeks and months, and regained in years and decades,” he said.
"My point is not that short term markets are bad or inaccurate. They serve a very useful purpose. It is susceptible to elevator analysis – this is up this is down. In addition to looking at the short term and what that tells us how do we focus on longer term drivers of the economy."
British economist John Kay told the Today programme, which Mr Jenkins was guest editing, that bankers' now spend more time than religious leaders telling the public that they are ethical, while simultaneously working in an industry that has acted anything but ethically.
“Over the last 20 years banks have systematically destroyed their relationship with their customers,” Mr Kay said, adding that he was not very optimistic that things would improve.
Mr Jenkins responded by saying that that the cure to a rotten culture is proper leadership from the top, but that the process is a slow one.
"In my view leadership sets the culture in big organisations and culture drives organisational performance. If you want a different sort of organisational performance, a more ethical business, you’re going to have to change culture. Culture takes time to change and it comes back to leadership. If you take a long term perspective you’ll build the right culture," he said.
Mr Jenkins added that he was setting a target for Barclays to be more trusted than not by 2018.
It is one of eight commitments Jenkins will make to staff, customers, shareholders and what he calls society in a few months.
Source: Independent
Mr Jenkins made the comment in a speech to students at Brooke House Sixth Form College in East London.
In the chat, which was broadcast on this morning's Today programme on BBC Radio 4, Mr Jenkins said: “Trust is a very easy thing to lose, and a very hard thing to win back.
"In my view it will takes several years - probably five to ten - to rebuilt trust in Barclays."
Barclays was the first bank to be implicated in the Libor scandal, in which traders rigged the London inter-banking rate, leading to a £290 million fine in June 2012, and the bank was also involved in the PPI mis-selling scandal.
Mr Jenkins vowed to restore Barclay’s reputation when he was made CEO in August last year, after the Libor scandal brought down his predecessor, Bob Diamond. In February he revealed his plan to overhaul the bank by fundamentally changing the culture under which its traders operate.
He added in his speech that he hoped the future actions of Barclays would help rebuild confidence in the wider banking sector.
Mr Jenkins chose as his theme “the importance of long-term thinking and planning, and proper leadership”.
“Trust is lost in weeks and months, and regained in years and decades,” he said.
"My point is not that short term markets are bad or inaccurate. They serve a very useful purpose. It is susceptible to elevator analysis – this is up this is down. In addition to looking at the short term and what that tells us how do we focus on longer term drivers of the economy."
British economist John Kay told the Today programme, which Mr Jenkins was guest editing, that bankers' now spend more time than religious leaders telling the public that they are ethical, while simultaneously working in an industry that has acted anything but ethically.
“Over the last 20 years banks have systematically destroyed their relationship with their customers,” Mr Kay said, adding that he was not very optimistic that things would improve.
Mr Jenkins responded by saying that that the cure to a rotten culture is proper leadership from the top, but that the process is a slow one.
"In my view leadership sets the culture in big organisations and culture drives organisational performance. If you want a different sort of organisational performance, a more ethical business, you’re going to have to change culture. Culture takes time to change and it comes back to leadership. If you take a long term perspective you’ll build the right culture," he said.
Mr Jenkins added that he was setting a target for Barclays to be more trusted than not by 2018.
It is one of eight commitments Jenkins will make to staff, customers, shareholders and what he calls society in a few months.
Source: Independent
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
South Africans losing trust in political and business ethics
According to research by Transparency International, South Africa is perceived as being more corrupt this year than it was last year.
What is considerably alarming is that 50% of persons interviewed perceived the judiciary as corrupt; 70% perceived parliament as corrupt and a staggering 83% perceived the South African Police Service as corrupt.
In a statement on Tuesday, local civil society organization Corruption Watch (CW) said the perceptions were indicative of a public that was losing trust in political, public, and business leadership.
Source: the Sowetan
Saturday, November 23, 2013
Reducing Crime: Learning From The Failed Criminal Justice System
The United States holds the highest incarceration rate in the world, with over 2 million currently in America’s prisons, and millions more on parole and probation. The majority are in state prisons, around 60 percent, and roughly 10 percent are held in federal prisons. In 2011, one out of every 34 adults [7 million+] were being supervised by the criminal justice system, at that time there were over 2 million incarcerated, 854,000 on parole, and 4 million on probation.
In 2009, the US held roughly 4.5 percent of the world’s total population, but housed 23 percent of the worlds prisoners. California and Texas hold the first positions for having the most prisoners, both have over 100,000 inmates. Thousands of individuals are serving severe time for non-violent, and often victimless crimes. Timothy Jackson, an inmate from Angola prison in Louisiana, has served over 16 years, and still looking to spend the rest of his life in prison for having stolen a jacket from a department store that was valued at $159.00.
Other individuals have been sentenced to life with no chance of parole for crimes like siphoning gas from a truck, trying to cash a stolen cheque, selling marijuana, and stealing tools from a tool shed. Although legislation varies from between the states, the federal government has increasingly taken a zero-tolerance approach to crime, even victimless crime such as marijuana possession. The infamous three-strike rule has also proved ineffective at reducing recidivism (or repeat offenses). Surprisingly, violent crime rates have declined for the past several years, which may perhaps be due to fact that hundreds of thousands of individuals that were engaged within the system received stricter life sentencing, and they are therefore permanently caged within the criminal justice system, removing their participation as a criminal statistic.
After three decades of steady increase, crime rates have been in steady decline. Aside from stricter sentencing, rates may also be in decline in response to soaring gun ownership rates. Or, perhaps the violent crime rates are in decline because self-report is in decline, or the statistics themselves are not reliably accurate, or laws are not being strictly enforced. The answer no doubt is a myriad of factors which all contribute to the overall effect seen. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI], violent crime rates have declined by roughly 25 percent. Regardless of the decline seen in crime rates though, prison population continues to soar and remain at an all time high, with alarming numbers of juveniles being detained and held in solitary confinement.
Imprisonment is a costly endeavor for society, indeed the States spend well over $45 billion in tax dollars on corrections, it costs an average of $23,876 dollars to imprison someone for a year, according to data from 2005, the total cost varies among the states. While the taxpayer is footing the bill to house “criminals” within the various institutions [strategically separated] within their communities, prisons are immorally profiting off the labor of their inmates.
Tens of thousands of inmates are being “generously” employed, some for as little as 20 cents an hour, within numerous prison systems. Starbucks, Nintendo, Victoria’s Secret, Wal-Mart, and JC Penny are just some of the mega corporations that are invested in, and profiting from, the labor of individuals who have become one more statistic as part of America’s soaring incarceration rates. This system encourages and creates a demand for arrests, and enables the prison industrial complex to feed off of them and continue to increase profits. With such a system in place it is reasonable to assume that incarceration rates may not decline, even if violent crime declines, as long as the prison is established in such a way that it makes a higher profit along with the increase in the rate of their incarceration.
The expectations of our justice system to both punish and rehabilitate, is a conflicting objective which leads to internal conflict and contradiction. The system aims to prevent crime by instilling fear on the offender, but recidivism remains high and states with stricter punishment still see high incarceration rates [e.g Texas]. The “fear” of prison isn’t sufficient to prevent crime, or even to reduce recidivism. Meanwhile rehabilitation, especially utilizing methods which incorporate members from the community, has a lasting effect at deterring individuals from engaging in a life of crime. Programs such as meditation have also shown to drastically help inmates cope with daily anxiety and stress.
One popular form of rehabilitation is a program of meditation for inmates referred to as Transcendental Meditation, taking part in such activities can help inmates to cope with their frustration, anxiety, and anger. Transcendental Meditation can significantly reduce crime, criminal aggression, violence, recidivism, terrorism, and even international conflict, while simultaneously developing higher levels of psychological functioning (Alexander et al., 2003). Victim-offender mediation has also proven beneficial, in some instances mediation will occur between the offender, the victim, and perhaps other family and community members. Every individual gets a chance to address their concerns over the event, how the crime made any impact on their life. This type of rehabilitation effort encourages justice, accountability, restoration, and community involvement. Even allowing the inmates to help train stray dogs seems to a highly therapeutic effect and actually saves money by extending how long the strays can be kept. Instead of locking up the offender as a caged animal, shunning them away from society and making them feel uninvolved with the community, it takes a more positive approach in encouraging the offender to be a part of that community.
A fiscally responsible nation cannot afford such a dysfunctional criminal justice system. Getting “tough” on crime doesn’t prevent crime, nor does it decrease recidivism. This mirrors how violent parenting strategies often don’t produce more able or responsible children. And the fear of prison initially is not sufficient enough to prevent crime either: fear is only effective in motivating criminals to avoid being caught as instead of avoiding the crime. When the individual is ostracized from the community, they forget how to be a part of it, this only adds to their troubles.
When inmates finally get out of prison, many don’t have a place to live or means to get a job or even to print a resume for one. Even for tasks as simple as buying groceries, many of these individuals never learned the basic skills which would enable them to create a monthly budget, or to plan out meals and necessary life costs, so that they could better manage to cover their daily needs without finding themselves short and feeling the need to resort to crime. Many individuals within the system also suffer from some mental impairment or drug addiction, and simply caging these individuals doesn’t solve any underlying problem.
Our current criminal justice system has failed and continues to fail not just the prisoners, but society overall. It conditions the guards to treat others as less than human, it creates further resentment and anger in the hearts of the prisoners, and almost no one comes out alright, let alone rehabilitated, on the other side. This is literally only “working” those investing in private prisons. Isn’t it time we focused on solving problems, on rehabilitation, and not solely on punishment at a high financial to all involved?
Source: http://www.exposingthetruth.co
In 2009, the US held roughly 4.5 percent of the world’s total population, but housed 23 percent of the worlds prisoners. California and Texas hold the first positions for having the most prisoners, both have over 100,000 inmates. Thousands of individuals are serving severe time for non-violent, and often victimless crimes. Timothy Jackson, an inmate from Angola prison in Louisiana, has served over 16 years, and still looking to spend the rest of his life in prison for having stolen a jacket from a department store that was valued at $159.00.
Other individuals have been sentenced to life with no chance of parole for crimes like siphoning gas from a truck, trying to cash a stolen cheque, selling marijuana, and stealing tools from a tool shed. Although legislation varies from between the states, the federal government has increasingly taken a zero-tolerance approach to crime, even victimless crime such as marijuana possession. The infamous three-strike rule has also proved ineffective at reducing recidivism (or repeat offenses). Surprisingly, violent crime rates have declined for the past several years, which may perhaps be due to fact that hundreds of thousands of individuals that were engaged within the system received stricter life sentencing, and they are therefore permanently caged within the criminal justice system, removing their participation as a criminal statistic.
After three decades of steady increase, crime rates have been in steady decline. Aside from stricter sentencing, rates may also be in decline in response to soaring gun ownership rates. Or, perhaps the violent crime rates are in decline because self-report is in decline, or the statistics themselves are not reliably accurate, or laws are not being strictly enforced. The answer no doubt is a myriad of factors which all contribute to the overall effect seen. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI], violent crime rates have declined by roughly 25 percent. Regardless of the decline seen in crime rates though, prison population continues to soar and remain at an all time high, with alarming numbers of juveniles being detained and held in solitary confinement.
Imprisonment is a costly endeavor for society, indeed the States spend well over $45 billion in tax dollars on corrections, it costs an average of $23,876 dollars to imprison someone for a year, according to data from 2005, the total cost varies among the states. While the taxpayer is footing the bill to house “criminals” within the various institutions [strategically separated] within their communities, prisons are immorally profiting off the labor of their inmates.
Tens of thousands of inmates are being “generously” employed, some for as little as 20 cents an hour, within numerous prison systems. Starbucks, Nintendo, Victoria’s Secret, Wal-Mart, and JC Penny are just some of the mega corporations that are invested in, and profiting from, the labor of individuals who have become one more statistic as part of America’s soaring incarceration rates. This system encourages and creates a demand for arrests, and enables the prison industrial complex to feed off of them and continue to increase profits. With such a system in place it is reasonable to assume that incarceration rates may not decline, even if violent crime declines, as long as the prison is established in such a way that it makes a higher profit along with the increase in the rate of their incarceration.
The expectations of our justice system to both punish and rehabilitate, is a conflicting objective which leads to internal conflict and contradiction. The system aims to prevent crime by instilling fear on the offender, but recidivism remains high and states with stricter punishment still see high incarceration rates [e.g Texas]. The “fear” of prison isn’t sufficient to prevent crime, or even to reduce recidivism. Meanwhile rehabilitation, especially utilizing methods which incorporate members from the community, has a lasting effect at deterring individuals from engaging in a life of crime. Programs such as meditation have also shown to drastically help inmates cope with daily anxiety and stress.
One popular form of rehabilitation is a program of meditation for inmates referred to as Transcendental Meditation, taking part in such activities can help inmates to cope with their frustration, anxiety, and anger. Transcendental Meditation can significantly reduce crime, criminal aggression, violence, recidivism, terrorism, and even international conflict, while simultaneously developing higher levels of psychological functioning (Alexander et al., 2003). Victim-offender mediation has also proven beneficial, in some instances mediation will occur between the offender, the victim, and perhaps other family and community members. Every individual gets a chance to address their concerns over the event, how the crime made any impact on their life. This type of rehabilitation effort encourages justice, accountability, restoration, and community involvement. Even allowing the inmates to help train stray dogs seems to a highly therapeutic effect and actually saves money by extending how long the strays can be kept. Instead of locking up the offender as a caged animal, shunning them away from society and making them feel uninvolved with the community, it takes a more positive approach in encouraging the offender to be a part of that community.
A fiscally responsible nation cannot afford such a dysfunctional criminal justice system. Getting “tough” on crime doesn’t prevent crime, nor does it decrease recidivism. This mirrors how violent parenting strategies often don’t produce more able or responsible children. And the fear of prison initially is not sufficient enough to prevent crime either: fear is only effective in motivating criminals to avoid being caught as instead of avoiding the crime. When the individual is ostracized from the community, they forget how to be a part of it, this only adds to their troubles.
When inmates finally get out of prison, many don’t have a place to live or means to get a job or even to print a resume for one. Even for tasks as simple as buying groceries, many of these individuals never learned the basic skills which would enable them to create a monthly budget, or to plan out meals and necessary life costs, so that they could better manage to cover their daily needs without finding themselves short and feeling the need to resort to crime. Many individuals within the system also suffer from some mental impairment or drug addiction, and simply caging these individuals doesn’t solve any underlying problem.
Our current criminal justice system has failed and continues to fail not just the prisoners, but society overall. It conditions the guards to treat others as less than human, it creates further resentment and anger in the hearts of the prisoners, and almost no one comes out alright, let alone rehabilitated, on the other side. This is literally only “working” those investing in private prisons. Isn’t it time we focused on solving problems, on rehabilitation, and not solely on punishment at a high financial to all involved?
Source: http://www.exposingthetruth.co
Friday, July 5, 2013
The new myth of a rising Africa
AFRICA’S image and that of her people has often been the subject of heated debate in media circles. More often, the narrative that has shaped the image of this vast and populous continent is by others for Africans.
For long, the continent has been viewed by foreigners as a photo-opportunity to illustrate victimhood and desperation. Images of emaciated children, with pot-bellies, fending off flies from their faces and women with flat breasts due to hunger are all meant to depict the degree of helplessness that characterises the lives of the people of this continent.
The African continent in this old narrative is stark in a vicious cycle of poverty and conflict with no end in sight.
This old narrative viewed as stereotyping Africans has of late come under challenge from proponents of the new narrative who seek to give positive trends and underlying successes by Africans. Evangelists of the new narrative are usually Africans writing their own discourse for their own people.
The new narrative aims to articulate the history, vision, philosophy and aspirations of Africans, who for long, claims to have been inaccurately portrayed in the media on the global stage. By so doing, Africans define themselves as opposed to being defined by others; they shape their story contrary to having it shaped by others; and articulate their agenda to be heard on the international arena.
Proponents of the new narrative have been energised by the story of the “rising” Africa backed by Western institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which projects that growth south of the Sahara is expected to surge to 6,1 % in 2014, well ahead of the global average of 4%. As The Economist’s piece pointed out recently: “Over the past decade, six of the 10 fastest growing countries were African.” The list of some of the so-called fastest growing African economies is headed by Angola, Congo, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda and Tanzania.
How far have Africans been able to articulate their narrative and how loud are their voices? To what extent is the international audience prepared to listen to this new narrative and has it changed Africa’s image? The new narrative can only hold if Africans become self-sufficient and be able to sustain themselves without depending on others for survival. Africa’s dependence on foreign aid has not helped in her quest to articulate this new narrative.
Over the past 60 years, Dambisa Moyo notes, Africa received at least US$1 trillion of development-related aid from developed countries. This figure amounts to roughly US$50 billion of international assistance being received by Africa each year. Ethiopia, which is heralded as one “rising” African state, has more than 90% of her annual budget made up of donor funding. The same also applies to Malawi whose economy is unsustainable without foreign aid yet the two countries are paraded in international media as African success stories.
Most African leaders attend to international conferences not to contribute to discussions carried out at such forums, but to beg for aid which rarely reach its recipients. Given this disturbing scenario, it therefore means the agenda pursued by most African states is dictated by foreigners (donors) since he who pays the piper calls the tune.
Africa’s voice can only be heard and listened to when she is able to stand on her own without need for support from outsiders. Since when have beggars been privileged to become choosers and to influence policy on the international arena? Dependence on foreign aid chokes Africa’s voice, thus robbing her of influence which makes her narrative weak.
The continent’s misery to an extent is self-inflicting although external forces play a part in complicating the situation. Most African governments are corrupt and the practice deprives the continent of the much-needed revenue to uplift its people’s lives.
A study by the African Development Bank (AfBD) and the Global Financial Integrity, reveals that from 1980-2009, Africa has lost US$1,2 trillion to US$1,4 trillion in illicit financial outflows, or dirty money, like corruption, tax evasion, bribes and other criminal challenges.
This figure, as Obadia Ndaba argues, is more than three times the total amount of foreign aid received in the same period. It therefore implies that Africa does not necessarily need foreign aid if she manages her resources properly. The same AfDB report says that South Africa, Africa’s largest economy, has lost US$170 billion in net resources over a period of 30 years in illicit outflows.
Nigeria, Africa’s second largest economy, is reported to have lost over US$400 billion to oil corruption alone since independence in 1960 from another report in 2012. South Africa lost US$103 million in the fiscal year 2011-2012, up from US$38,5 million in 2001-2010, according to The Real State of the Nation report by the government.
Zimbabwe’s Parliamentary Committee on Mines and Energy recently reported to parliament recently that millions of dollars in royalties paid by diamond firms in eastern Zimbabwe have disappeared.
One firm, Mbada Diamonds, which works with in partnership government, says it has paid US$293 million in taxes over four years, but Treasury is reported to have just received US$80 million in total during the 2011-2012 period, with the remainder unaccounted for.
The chairperson of the parliamentary committee, Edward Chindori-Chininga, mysteriously died in a road accident less than a week after tabling the findings of the committee in what many suspect to be elimination by those involved in the murky world of diamond dealings.
The resource drain from Africa over the past 30 years, Professor Mthuli Ncube, chief economist and vice-president of the AfDB argues, is almost equivalent to Africa’s GDP and is holding back Africa’s lift-off.
This spiral web of corruption sucks the continent’s wealth, leaving her unable to sustain the livelihood of her people, but reduces them to beggars. Once they are reduced to paupers, they are robbed of a voice and influence at home and on the international stage which in turn influences their ability to articulate their issues.
The narrative of a rising Africa might suit a clique of the African elite and Western chief executive officers, but it won’t do anything to improve the lives of ordinary Africans.
The image of an African man with a mobile phone does not in any way reflect a rising Africa at a time the continent grapples with rising unemployment, deplorable living conditions, with the majority of the population living on less than a dollar in a day.
It is a narrative peddled by the African elite and their foreign partners who benefit from the discourse at the expense of ordinary Africans.
Poor governance compound Africa’s plethora of problems. In spite of the continent’s vast economic wealth, the continent is still the poorest on the planet.
The African Progress Panel, headed by former United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan, reveals that secret mining deals and financial transfers, corruption and weak leadership, have immensely contributed to the impoverishment of the continent. The report gave the example of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which is estimated to possess in excess of US$24 trillion under its soil, but is reported to be the poorest country in the world according to the UN Human Development Index.
According to the same report, the DRC lost US$1,4 billion in secret deals as well as from five underpriced ventures involving top government officials in partnership with foreigners.
The report noted that “the figure was equivalent to double DRC’s health and education budgets combined”.
The African Progress Panel’s 2013 African Progress Report at the World Economic Forum on Africa in Cape Town recently concluded that Africa is losing more through illicit financial outflows than it receives in aid and foreign direct investment.
Foreigners collude with the African elite to drain the continent’s wealth taking advantage of weak and corrupt regimes through trade mispricing, misrepresentation of export and import values along other illicit outflows costing the continent US$38,4 billion and US$25 billion respectively between 2008 and 2010.
Foreign companies operating in Africa are also involved in this plunder of the continent’s resources. As noted by the report, “activities of these companies are characterised by extensive use of offshore registered and low tax jurisdictions”, and that “these arrangements come with weak public disclosure and extensive opportunities for tax evasion”.
The myth of Africa’s rise, peddled by the African elite and their foreign collaborators, comes from a straightforward interpretation of high growth rates and increased foreign investments in parts of the continent, without taking into consideration the continent’s dependence on the extractive industry as opposed to manufacturing.
In The Myth of Africa’s Rise, Rick Rowden highlights how Africa’s rising evangelists “don’t mention manufacturing, or its disturbing absence, in Africa”.
A recent UN report shows that manufacturing has stagnated across most of Africa and has even regressed in 23 African countries. As Patrick Smith, editor of Africa Confidential argues, “there is a lack of value added on the African side”.
Parselelo Kantai observes “what is happening on the continent is a new era of massive extraction, catalysed mostly by Chinese domestic demands”.
The continuous looting of Africa’s wealth by outsiders in collaboration with the African elite will continue for generations and as long as the trend is not stopped, Africa will remain poor.
Muchayi is a political analyst who can be contacted on wmuchayi@gmail.com
Source: Zimbabwe independent
For long, the continent has been viewed by foreigners as a photo-opportunity to illustrate victimhood and desperation. Images of emaciated children, with pot-bellies, fending off flies from their faces and women with flat breasts due to hunger are all meant to depict the degree of helplessness that characterises the lives of the people of this continent.
The African continent in this old narrative is stark in a vicious cycle of poverty and conflict with no end in sight.
This old narrative viewed as stereotyping Africans has of late come under challenge from proponents of the new narrative who seek to give positive trends and underlying successes by Africans. Evangelists of the new narrative are usually Africans writing their own discourse for their own people.
The new narrative aims to articulate the history, vision, philosophy and aspirations of Africans, who for long, claims to have been inaccurately portrayed in the media on the global stage. By so doing, Africans define themselves as opposed to being defined by others; they shape their story contrary to having it shaped by others; and articulate their agenda to be heard on the international arena.
Proponents of the new narrative have been energised by the story of the “rising” Africa backed by Western institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which projects that growth south of the Sahara is expected to surge to 6,1 % in 2014, well ahead of the global average of 4%. As The Economist’s piece pointed out recently: “Over the past decade, six of the 10 fastest growing countries were African.” The list of some of the so-called fastest growing African economies is headed by Angola, Congo, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda and Tanzania.
How far have Africans been able to articulate their narrative and how loud are their voices? To what extent is the international audience prepared to listen to this new narrative and has it changed Africa’s image? The new narrative can only hold if Africans become self-sufficient and be able to sustain themselves without depending on others for survival. Africa’s dependence on foreign aid has not helped in her quest to articulate this new narrative.
Over the past 60 years, Dambisa Moyo notes, Africa received at least US$1 trillion of development-related aid from developed countries. This figure amounts to roughly US$50 billion of international assistance being received by Africa each year. Ethiopia, which is heralded as one “rising” African state, has more than 90% of her annual budget made up of donor funding. The same also applies to Malawi whose economy is unsustainable without foreign aid yet the two countries are paraded in international media as African success stories.
Most African leaders attend to international conferences not to contribute to discussions carried out at such forums, but to beg for aid which rarely reach its recipients. Given this disturbing scenario, it therefore means the agenda pursued by most African states is dictated by foreigners (donors) since he who pays the piper calls the tune.
Africa’s voice can only be heard and listened to when she is able to stand on her own without need for support from outsiders. Since when have beggars been privileged to become choosers and to influence policy on the international arena? Dependence on foreign aid chokes Africa’s voice, thus robbing her of influence which makes her narrative weak.
The continent’s misery to an extent is self-inflicting although external forces play a part in complicating the situation. Most African governments are corrupt and the practice deprives the continent of the much-needed revenue to uplift its people’s lives.
A study by the African Development Bank (AfBD) and the Global Financial Integrity, reveals that from 1980-2009, Africa has lost US$1,2 trillion to US$1,4 trillion in illicit financial outflows, or dirty money, like corruption, tax evasion, bribes and other criminal challenges.
This figure, as Obadia Ndaba argues, is more than three times the total amount of foreign aid received in the same period. It therefore implies that Africa does not necessarily need foreign aid if she manages her resources properly. The same AfDB report says that South Africa, Africa’s largest economy, has lost US$170 billion in net resources over a period of 30 years in illicit outflows.
Nigeria, Africa’s second largest economy, is reported to have lost over US$400 billion to oil corruption alone since independence in 1960 from another report in 2012. South Africa lost US$103 million in the fiscal year 2011-2012, up from US$38,5 million in 2001-2010, according to The Real State of the Nation report by the government.
Zimbabwe’s Parliamentary Committee on Mines and Energy recently reported to parliament recently that millions of dollars in royalties paid by diamond firms in eastern Zimbabwe have disappeared.
One firm, Mbada Diamonds, which works with in partnership government, says it has paid US$293 million in taxes over four years, but Treasury is reported to have just received US$80 million in total during the 2011-2012 period, with the remainder unaccounted for.
The chairperson of the parliamentary committee, Edward Chindori-Chininga, mysteriously died in a road accident less than a week after tabling the findings of the committee in what many suspect to be elimination by those involved in the murky world of diamond dealings.
The resource drain from Africa over the past 30 years, Professor Mthuli Ncube, chief economist and vice-president of the AfDB argues, is almost equivalent to Africa’s GDP and is holding back Africa’s lift-off.
This spiral web of corruption sucks the continent’s wealth, leaving her unable to sustain the livelihood of her people, but reduces them to beggars. Once they are reduced to paupers, they are robbed of a voice and influence at home and on the international stage which in turn influences their ability to articulate their issues.
The narrative of a rising Africa might suit a clique of the African elite and Western chief executive officers, but it won’t do anything to improve the lives of ordinary Africans.
The image of an African man with a mobile phone does not in any way reflect a rising Africa at a time the continent grapples with rising unemployment, deplorable living conditions, with the majority of the population living on less than a dollar in a day.
It is a narrative peddled by the African elite and their foreign partners who benefit from the discourse at the expense of ordinary Africans.
Poor governance compound Africa’s plethora of problems. In spite of the continent’s vast economic wealth, the continent is still the poorest on the planet.
The African Progress Panel, headed by former United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan, reveals that secret mining deals and financial transfers, corruption and weak leadership, have immensely contributed to the impoverishment of the continent. The report gave the example of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which is estimated to possess in excess of US$24 trillion under its soil, but is reported to be the poorest country in the world according to the UN Human Development Index.
According to the same report, the DRC lost US$1,4 billion in secret deals as well as from five underpriced ventures involving top government officials in partnership with foreigners.
The report noted that “the figure was equivalent to double DRC’s health and education budgets combined”.
The African Progress Panel’s 2013 African Progress Report at the World Economic Forum on Africa in Cape Town recently concluded that Africa is losing more through illicit financial outflows than it receives in aid and foreign direct investment.
Foreigners collude with the African elite to drain the continent’s wealth taking advantage of weak and corrupt regimes through trade mispricing, misrepresentation of export and import values along other illicit outflows costing the continent US$38,4 billion and US$25 billion respectively between 2008 and 2010.
Foreign companies operating in Africa are also involved in this plunder of the continent’s resources. As noted by the report, “activities of these companies are characterised by extensive use of offshore registered and low tax jurisdictions”, and that “these arrangements come with weak public disclosure and extensive opportunities for tax evasion”.
The myth of Africa’s rise, peddled by the African elite and their foreign collaborators, comes from a straightforward interpretation of high growth rates and increased foreign investments in parts of the continent, without taking into consideration the continent’s dependence on the extractive industry as opposed to manufacturing.
In The Myth of Africa’s Rise, Rick Rowden highlights how Africa’s rising evangelists “don’t mention manufacturing, or its disturbing absence, in Africa”.
A recent UN report shows that manufacturing has stagnated across most of Africa and has even regressed in 23 African countries. As Patrick Smith, editor of Africa Confidential argues, “there is a lack of value added on the African side”.
Parselelo Kantai observes “what is happening on the continent is a new era of massive extraction, catalysed mostly by Chinese domestic demands”.
The continuous looting of Africa’s wealth by outsiders in collaboration with the African elite will continue for generations and as long as the trend is not stopped, Africa will remain poor.
Muchayi is a political analyst who can be contacted on wmuchayi@gmail.com
Source: Zimbabwe independent
Saturday, June 22, 2013
Agang launch: Nkandla, Guptas, Arms Deal - Ramphele criticises government
"The leaders of this current government set an appalling example that others follow ... They seem to think they are beyond the reach of the law," Agang SA leader Mamphela Ramphele said on Saturday at the Tshwane Events Centre.
"One by one they have systematically attacked the very foundations of our constitutional democracy, the judicial system, the freedom of the press, accountability of government and the human rights of all citizens."
She said the arrogance of the current government was "breathtaking". It was acting with impunity and abusing "the resources of the state for the enrichment of a party, themselves and their friends".
"The arms deal, Nkandla, the Guptas, the list of these abuses goes on and on," she said to a cheering crowd.
The former activist and businessperson was welcomed by cheers from the crowd who arrived to support her new party.
More than a thousand people, mostly dressed in white T-shirts with Agang SA printed on them, listened intently and cheered as Ramphele spoke about problems facing South Africa.
For the past five months Ramphele visited communities around the country listening to people's concerns.
"We are here to begin the restoration of the promise of our great nation and to offer the hope of a better future for South Africa," she told the crowd.
"There is a desperate need for change."
Leaders failed to deliver
After nearly 20 years, the country's leaders failed to deliver on the promise of freedom, she said. Adding that it was too long to wait for jobs, education and healthcare.
Ramphele said the country had reached a crossroads.
"I for one do not want to think about where we will be in five years time unless we change course. Imagine five more years of corruption," she said as the crowd shouted "no".
"Imagine five more years of young people being lost from the education system and the economy. Five more years of millions of people entering the workforce but not having jobs. Five more years of non-functioning hospitals and clinics."
However, the country had potential and it was this, according to Ramphele, which inspired her at the age of 65 to enter South African politics and start Agang SA.
During Ramphele's speech the mostly youthful crowd, started shouting "enough is enough".
She introduced her campaign team calling them world-class.
Nkosinathi Solomon, who joined Agang from Absa, was the campaign director.
Also on the team were Dr Mills Soko, director of policy, from the University of Cape Town's graduate school of business, Thabo Leshilo, a former Sowetan editor as director of communications, Zohra Dawood as director of fundraising and Rorisang Tshabalala as deputy director of field management.
Elective conference
Ramphele also announced that Vanessa Hani, former South African Communist Party leader Chris Hani's daughter, would join her team to focus on mobilising women as part of the field management team.
Moeketsi Mosola joined as political director and would lead the creation of the party's political leadership.
Ramphele said Agang would hold an elective conference towards the end of the year.
"There are many experienced parliamentarians and battle hardened activists who will join our national and provincial leadership in the coming months," she said.
"We will strike a balance between old hands and many new faces." – Sapa
Source: Mail & Guardian
"One by one they have systematically attacked the very foundations of our constitutional democracy, the judicial system, the freedom of the press, accountability of government and the human rights of all citizens."
She said the arrogance of the current government was "breathtaking". It was acting with impunity and abusing "the resources of the state for the enrichment of a party, themselves and their friends".
"The arms deal, Nkandla, the Guptas, the list of these abuses goes on and on," she said to a cheering crowd.
The former activist and businessperson was welcomed by cheers from the crowd who arrived to support her new party.
More than a thousand people, mostly dressed in white T-shirts with Agang SA printed on them, listened intently and cheered as Ramphele spoke about problems facing South Africa.
For the past five months Ramphele visited communities around the country listening to people's concerns.
"We are here to begin the restoration of the promise of our great nation and to offer the hope of a better future for South Africa," she told the crowd.
"There is a desperate need for change."
Leaders failed to deliver
After nearly 20 years, the country's leaders failed to deliver on the promise of freedom, she said. Adding that it was too long to wait for jobs, education and healthcare.
Ramphele said the country had reached a crossroads.
"I for one do not want to think about where we will be in five years time unless we change course. Imagine five more years of corruption," she said as the crowd shouted "no".
"Imagine five more years of young people being lost from the education system and the economy. Five more years of millions of people entering the workforce but not having jobs. Five more years of non-functioning hospitals and clinics."
However, the country had potential and it was this, according to Ramphele, which inspired her at the age of 65 to enter South African politics and start Agang SA.
During Ramphele's speech the mostly youthful crowd, started shouting "enough is enough".
She introduced her campaign team calling them world-class.
Nkosinathi Solomon, who joined Agang from Absa, was the campaign director.
Also on the team were Dr Mills Soko, director of policy, from the University of Cape Town's graduate school of business, Thabo Leshilo, a former Sowetan editor as director of communications, Zohra Dawood as director of fundraising and Rorisang Tshabalala as deputy director of field management.
Elective conference
Ramphele also announced that Vanessa Hani, former South African Communist Party leader Chris Hani's daughter, would join her team to focus on mobilising women as part of the field management team.
Moeketsi Mosola joined as political director and would lead the creation of the party's political leadership.
Ramphele said Agang would hold an elective conference towards the end of the year.
"There are many experienced parliamentarians and battle hardened activists who will join our national and provincial leadership in the coming months," she said.
"We will strike a balance between old hands and many new faces." – Sapa
Source: Mail & Guardian
Friday, November 30, 2012
Bluster is no cover for state’s excess and drift
TO EVADE detailed explanations over gargantuan government spending on his rural hacienda, President Jacob Zuma and his acolytes have evoked everything from state secrecy and executive dignity to emotive claims about rural tradition and white prejudice. It’s a scatter-gun approach. Inconsistency seems to be developing into a defensive Cabinet habit. This succeeds only in tying the government into ever knottier complications.
When ministers begin to contradict each other, and sometimes even themselves, it betrays an increasing lack of central direction and conviction. Recently the government, despite a preoccupation with the "secrecy bill" and snooping foreign agents, has successfully exposed its own worst blunders. Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa resorted to court in an attempt to prevent an inquiry into policing in Khayelitsha, instituted by Western Cape premier Helen Zille at the request of community organisations. Mthethwa dismissed Zille’s commission as "politicking" and claimed there was no problem with vigilante murders in Khayelitsha.
Yet a report by national police commissioner Riah Phiyega, ironically lodged with Mthethwa’s own court papers, revealed there have been 78 vigilante killings in Khayelitsha in less than a year: an average of six a month. You don’t really need a vexatious official opposition when the government itself is quite capable of exposing its own "politicking" — and even provides the irrefutable evidence.
This was followed by a heated dispute about how many Gulfstream jet flights, at a cost of R200,000 a trip, Lindiwe Sisulu took when she was defence minister. Democratic Alliance MP David Maynier alleged she had taken 200 such flights between Cape Town and Pretoria. Sisulu, who is now the Minister of Public Service and Administration, replied that she used the luxury jet only 35 times and accused Maynier of having "a flea-infested body".
The question is: where did those irritating fleas come from? Maynier was never able to elicit particulars of Sisulu’s travel arrangements when she was in charge of defence, because she claimed such information was a state secret. Instead, he got his information from Sisulu’s Cabinet colleague. Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula said her predecessor took 203 executive-jet flights. In other words, Sisulu blamed a mere oxpecker for ticks and fleas that originated from the ox itself: another sign of a government in disarray.
It is catching. Earlier this month, the South African Democratic Teachers' Union (Sadtu) issued a "stern warning" against civil society groups that have resorted to court action over the Limpopo textbook fiasco. Sadtu, claiming it could resolve this textbook issue, denounced the groups as "imperialist neoliberal forces … used as proxies to pursue certain political agendas". Two weeks later, Sadtu in Limpopo issued a statement expressing doubt that the Department of Basic Education could deliver school textbooks in time for next year.
The champion of this hydra-headed style is Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson. During the farm unrest in the Western Cape, she sounded like rivals furiously at odds with one another: Joemat the fiery revolutionary versus Pettersson the bungling government functionary.
The strikers had "won", she thundered, because they made the government listen. And the deafest culprit? As minister responsible, herself. So if farm protests reignite next week, will Comrade Joemat chuck rocks at Minister Pettersson?
Above all, no sooner was there a row over whether Zuma had taken a bond on his rural domain than his friend and former funder, Vivian Reddy, rashly declared that Zuma should be commended for choosing Nkandla when he could pick the plushest areas in the country. That boast neatly drew attention to the fact that, at a cost of more than R250m, the president’s homestead, per square metre, probably is the nation’s plushest area.
Along Cape Town’s Atlantic seaboard, you can pick up an ocean-facing mansion with six bedrooms, staff quarters, infinity pool and similar status symbols for R20m. At the Nkandla rate, you could buy 10 of those in Bantry Bay, Camps Bay and any other bay — and still have enough left for a 1,119ha game farm in KwaZulu-Natal plus a brace of helicopters.
No amount of bluster about disrespect, foreign agents or covert agendas can make up for infighting, excess and drift.
It is no way to run a country. It is no way to end inequality.
Source: Business Day
When ministers begin to contradict each other, and sometimes even themselves, it betrays an increasing lack of central direction and conviction. Recently the government, despite a preoccupation with the "secrecy bill" and snooping foreign agents, has successfully exposed its own worst blunders. Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa resorted to court in an attempt to prevent an inquiry into policing in Khayelitsha, instituted by Western Cape premier Helen Zille at the request of community organisations. Mthethwa dismissed Zille’s commission as "politicking" and claimed there was no problem with vigilante murders in Khayelitsha.
Yet a report by national police commissioner Riah Phiyega, ironically lodged with Mthethwa’s own court papers, revealed there have been 78 vigilante killings in Khayelitsha in less than a year: an average of six a month. You don’t really need a vexatious official opposition when the government itself is quite capable of exposing its own "politicking" — and even provides the irrefutable evidence.
This was followed by a heated dispute about how many Gulfstream jet flights, at a cost of R200,000 a trip, Lindiwe Sisulu took when she was defence minister. Democratic Alliance MP David Maynier alleged she had taken 200 such flights between Cape Town and Pretoria. Sisulu, who is now the Minister of Public Service and Administration, replied that she used the luxury jet only 35 times and accused Maynier of having "a flea-infested body".
The question is: where did those irritating fleas come from? Maynier was never able to elicit particulars of Sisulu’s travel arrangements when she was in charge of defence, because she claimed such information was a state secret. Instead, he got his information from Sisulu’s Cabinet colleague. Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula said her predecessor took 203 executive-jet flights. In other words, Sisulu blamed a mere oxpecker for ticks and fleas that originated from the ox itself: another sign of a government in disarray.
It is catching. Earlier this month, the South African Democratic Teachers' Union (Sadtu) issued a "stern warning" against civil society groups that have resorted to court action over the Limpopo textbook fiasco. Sadtu, claiming it could resolve this textbook issue, denounced the groups as "imperialist neoliberal forces … used as proxies to pursue certain political agendas". Two weeks later, Sadtu in Limpopo issued a statement expressing doubt that the Department of Basic Education could deliver school textbooks in time for next year.
The champion of this hydra-headed style is Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson. During the farm unrest in the Western Cape, she sounded like rivals furiously at odds with one another: Joemat the fiery revolutionary versus Pettersson the bungling government functionary.
The strikers had "won", she thundered, because they made the government listen. And the deafest culprit? As minister responsible, herself. So if farm protests reignite next week, will Comrade Joemat chuck rocks at Minister Pettersson?
Above all, no sooner was there a row over whether Zuma had taken a bond on his rural domain than his friend and former funder, Vivian Reddy, rashly declared that Zuma should be commended for choosing Nkandla when he could pick the plushest areas in the country. That boast neatly drew attention to the fact that, at a cost of more than R250m, the president’s homestead, per square metre, probably is the nation’s plushest area.
Along Cape Town’s Atlantic seaboard, you can pick up an ocean-facing mansion with six bedrooms, staff quarters, infinity pool and similar status symbols for R20m. At the Nkandla rate, you could buy 10 of those in Bantry Bay, Camps Bay and any other bay — and still have enough left for a 1,119ha game farm in KwaZulu-Natal plus a brace of helicopters.
No amount of bluster about disrespect, foreign agents or covert agendas can make up for infighting, excess and drift.
It is no way to run a country. It is no way to end inequality.
Source: Business Day
The ‘big bwana’ syndrome and the state
A big man, big man syndrome, or bigmanism, within the context of political science, refers to corrupt, autocratic and often totalitarian rule of countries by a single person.
Generally associated with neopatrimonial states, where there is a framework of formal law and administration but the state is informally captured by patronage networks. The distribution of the spoils of office takes precedence over the formal functions of the state, severely limiting the ability of public officials to make policies in the general interest. While neopatrimonialism may be considered the norm where a modern state is constructed in a preindustrial context, however, the African variants often result in bigmanism in the form of a strongly presidentialist political system.
Examples
Source: Wikipedia
Generally associated with neopatrimonial states, where there is a framework of formal law and administration but the state is informally captured by patronage networks. The distribution of the spoils of office takes precedence over the formal functions of the state, severely limiting the ability of public officials to make policies in the general interest. While neopatrimonialism may be considered the norm where a modern state is constructed in a preindustrial context, however, the African variants often result in bigmanism in the form of a strongly presidentialist political system.
Examples
- Mobutu Sese Seko - President of Zaire from 1965 to 1997. He remained in office for 31.5 years. While in office, he formed a totalitarian regime in Zaire which attempted to purge the country of all colonial cultural influence and entered wars to challenge the rise of communism in other African countries. His mismanagement of his country's economy, and personal enrichment from its financial and natural resources, makes his name synonymous with kleptocracy in Africa.
- Papa Doc Duvalier - President of Haiti from 1957 to 1971. In 1964 he made himself President for Life. He ruled until his death in 1971, in a regime marked by autocracy, corruption and state-sponsored terrorism through his private militia known as Tonton Macoutes. It has been estimated that he was responsible for 30,000 dead and exile of thousands more.
- Saparmurat Niyazov - President of Turkmenistan from 1990 until his death in 2006. Foreign media criticized him as one of the world's most totalitarian and repressive dictators, highlighting his reputation of imposing his personal eccentricities upon the country, which extended to renaming months after members of his family.
- Saddam Hussein - President of Iraq from 1979 to 2003. As president, Saddam maintained power during the Iran–Iraq War (1980–1988) and the first Persian Gulf War (1991). During these conflicts, Saddam repressed several movements, particularly Shi'a and Kurdish movements seeking to overthrow the government or gain independence, respectively. Whereas some Arabs looked upon him as a hero for his aggressive stance against foreign intervention and for his support for the Palestinians, many Arabs and western leaders vilified him for murdering scores of Kurdish people of the north and his invasion of Kuwait. Saddam was deposed by the U.S. and its allies during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
- Suharto - President of Indonesia from 1967 to 1998. The legacy of Suharto's 32-year rule is debated both in Indonesia and abroad. Under his "New Order" administration, Suharto constructed a strong, centralized and military-dominated government. An ability to maintain stability over a sprawling and diverse Indonesia and an avowedly anti-Communist stance won him the economic and diplomatic support of the West during the Cold War. For most of his presidency, Indonesia experienced significant economic growth and industrialization. Against the backdrop of Cold War international relations, Suharto's "New Order" invasion of East Timor, and the subsequent 24-year occupation, resulted in an estimated minimum of 102,800 deaths. A detailed statistical report prepared for the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in East Timor. By the 1990s, the New Order's authoritarianism and widespread corruption—estimates of government funds missappropriated by the Suharto family range from US$1.5 billion and US$35 billion was a source of much discontent, and was referred as one of the world's most corrupt leaders. Suharto tops corruption rankings. In the years since his presidency, attempts to try him on charges of corruption and genocide failed because of his poor health.
- Nicolae Ceauşescu was the General Secretary of the Romanian Workers' Party, later the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 until 1989, President of the Council of State from 1967 and President of Romania from 1974 until 1989. His rule was marked in the first decade by an open policy towards Western Europe and the United States of America, which deviated from that of the other Warsaw Pact states during the Cold War. He continued a trend first established by his predecessor, Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, who had tactfully coaxed the Khrushchev regime to withdraw troops from Romania in 1958. Ceauşescu's second decade was characterized by an increasingly erratic personality cult, extreme nationalism and a deterioration in foreign relations with Western powers and also with the Soviet Union. Ceauşescu's government was overthrown in December 1989, and he was shot following a televised two-hour session by a military court.
Source: Wikipedia
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