On March 14 2009, Moss Phakoe – a beloved husband, son, brother and father, a dedicated trade unionist and a committed ANC councillor – was gunned down, aged 52, in his car in Rustenburg as he arrived home after putting up posters for the ANC election campaign.
Moss Phakoe started as a shop steward at the ATC factory in Brits. He was instrumental in establishing the then banned ANC in the region, for which he was brutally assaulted by the Bophuthatswana police. He became an organiser in the National Union of Metalworkers, but prioritised his work in the ANC, becoming a municipal councillor in 2002. He served as a member of the mayoral committee until he was removed three times by Rustenburg’s then mayor, Matthew Wolmarans, for trying to expose corruption. He was a perfect example of what a revolutionary activist should be: serving the people, expecting no personal reward and determined to expose those betraying our liberation movement through crime and corruption, which robs us of services and rots the moral fibre of our society.
This week, more than three years after Phakoe’s brutal assassination, Matthew Wolmarans and his former bodyguard, Enoch Matshaba, were convicted for the murder and sentenced to 20 years in jail and life imprisonment, respectively. MossPhakoe’s tragic story provides a shocking insight into the crisis of crime and corruption in our country. He sacrificed his life for blowing the whistle on corruption in the Bojanala Platinum District Municipality in North West.
Just before his assassination, Phakoe handed Wolmarans a dossier that implicated numerous politicians in acts of corruption in the municipality. He also had evidence of fraud in North West drought-relief projects. R33 million had been allocated for drought relief, but none of the money reached the communities in need. Instead, it was siphoned off through companies. Comrade Moss handed documents proving this fraud to the then minister for cooperative governance and traditional affairs, Sicelo Shiceka. Shiceka said he gave the documents to the Special Investigating Unit (SIU).
On the day of his funeral, the then provincial premier, Edna Molewa, said Phakoe’s death was a tragic loss of a loyal servant of the people of North West. She, Shiceka and the SAPS provincial commissioner all gave guarantees that investigations were at an advanced stage and an arrest was imminent. Yet for more than three years, MossPhakoe’s family and Cosatu’s North West provincial secretary, Solly Phetoe, bravely battled to bring the killers to justice. It meant march after march and endless demands that leads be followed up. Phetoe’s untiring efforts in this regard earned him so many enemies Cosatu was forced to hire bodyguards for him. Everything possible was done to delay the police investigation, protect the culprits and keep the truth from the people. Friends of the murderers even mobilised sycophants from the ANC to display the movement’s sacred ANC symbols outside court in support of the killers. Regrettably, those who bussed in these protesters remain members and leaders of the movement.
Allegations remain that others may be implicated in the murder, and Cosatu is continuing to demand the original report Phakoe submitted to be published and the whole truth be uncovered. We also demand the immediate release of a report by the SIU on corruption in 24 municipalities in the North West, which Shiceka promised the Cosatu central executive committee would be handed over but still has not. We need this to ensure those implicated do not go back to their offices to continue corruption.
City Press has reported that since MossPhakoe’s death, even more allegations of fraud and corruption in the province have surfaced, and are being probed by the Hawks. Former Madibeng municipal manager Philemon Mapulane was arrested and charged with fraud and corruption for allegedly receiving bribes for tenders worth R100 million.
Other Madibeng officials have been arrested and charged, and no fewer than 28 cases of fraud and theft involving amounts ranging from R61 000 to R30 million are being investigated. The best memorial to MossPhakoe will be to take forward the crusade he lived and died for – to rid our country of corruption and revive our traditions of selfless service to the people. We must root out the corrupt few who tarnish the image of the many who are decent and honest. Let us hope that all those facing charges of corruption and murder will now face the full force of the law – and that we see no more demonstrations of support for them.
Cosatu is campaigning that in Mangaung the ANC will endorse a call for those facing allegations of murder, rape and corruption to be forced to step aside while investigations take place, and that they only return to their positions once cleared. This is a big move that can help to clean up the image of our movement.
Cosatu has been in the vanguard of the fight to root out corruption. That is why we have set up Corruption Watch. We are determined to track down those hijacking our movement to make money, regardless of their connections, and ensure that they are brought to court and, if found guilty, punished severely. That is why we demand the Protection of State Information Bill. Although much improved, it must still be amended to ensure that officials cannot classify evidence of corruption as “secret” in order to punish whistle-blowers.
Cosatu has also called on the Protected Disclosures Act to be amended. Currently, this provides protection to employees only and excludes other individuals such as independent contractors and suppliers or recipients of services. Nepotism, patronage, corruption and greed are not only destroying the ethic of self-sacrifice and service to the people that has traditionally characterised our revolutionary movement. They are also exacerbating divisions and factionalism, which increasingly are not about ideology, but about access to tenders and contracts.
Leadership contests are now less about political principles than about which faction of which individual will advance business careers and fill bank accounts. The worst problem of all is the emergence of death squads. Political killings are on the rise, in particular in Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape. If this continues, anyone who speaks out will be silenced, the entire state will be auctioned to the highest bidder and we shall be well on our way to becoming a corrupt banana republic.
We owe it to Comrade Moss Phakoe’s memory to take a stand and say no to corruption.
Source: City Press
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Saturday, July 21, 2012
British firm linked to Congo's illicit mineral trade
The continuing violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo is being fuelled by western companies who are buying the country's minerals without properly checking their origins, a new report alleges today.
Global Witness says the Congolese army and other armed groups in the east of the country control much of the mining and trade in tin ore (cassiterite), coltan, wolframite – often using forced labour.
The report argues the trade is prolonging the 12-year conflict there, which has seen mass killings and rape. About 100,000 people have been driven from their homes in the past few months alone.
"As long as the warring parties can fund themselves through international trade, they will continue to be able to inflict widespread violence on the population," said Patrick Alley, the director of Global Witness.
The report calls for UN sanctions against foreign firms that buy the minerals from intermediaries without exploring who was profiting from their purchase. Many of the firms accused are Belgian but Global Witness also calls for UN sanctions against a British firm, the London-based Amalgamated Metal Corporation (AMC), whose subsidiary, Thaisarco, buys tin ore in eastern Congo.
Global Witness acknowledges that Thaisarco purchases minerals from legal, government-authorised brokers, but argues the firm should do more to find out who is supplying those brokers. It points to a UN resolution calling for sanctions, including the freezing of assets of individuals or companies helping Congolese armed groups through the trade in natural resources.
The report alleges Thaisarco's main supplier in the South Kivu region, the centre of the conflict, gets its tin ore from mines controlled by the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), one of the main warring factions. Its leaders include Rwandan Hutus involved in the 1994 genocide.
AMC has denied any wrongdoing, saying it has always followed UN guidance in its trade in the region and is in the process of implementing more thorough measures aimed at increasing the transparency of the tin trade.
"Both AMC and Thaisarco have always sought to comply with the requirements and recommendations of the UN in respect of minerals originating in the DRC. In accordance with this, Thaisarco purchases DRC minerals subject to a recently enhanced, formal and detailed due diligence programme which ultimately is aimed at providing transparency throughout the supply chain," the statement said.
The new industry-wide measures, know as the Tin Supply Chain Initiative, were launched on 1 July, after the Global Witness report was completed.
"The Supply Chain Initiative has traceability of the minerals as its key objective in order to ensure that the trade does not benefit renegade or rebel groups," AMC said. The foreign office issued a statement yesterday recognising that illegally traded minerals were "one of the factors in the instability in eastern DRC".
Source: The Guardian
Global Witness says the Congolese army and other armed groups in the east of the country control much of the mining and trade in tin ore (cassiterite), coltan, wolframite – often using forced labour.
The report argues the trade is prolonging the 12-year conflict there, which has seen mass killings and rape. About 100,000 people have been driven from their homes in the past few months alone.
"As long as the warring parties can fund themselves through international trade, they will continue to be able to inflict widespread violence on the population," said Patrick Alley, the director of Global Witness.
The report calls for UN sanctions against foreign firms that buy the minerals from intermediaries without exploring who was profiting from their purchase. Many of the firms accused are Belgian but Global Witness also calls for UN sanctions against a British firm, the London-based Amalgamated Metal Corporation (AMC), whose subsidiary, Thaisarco, buys tin ore in eastern Congo.
Global Witness acknowledges that Thaisarco purchases minerals from legal, government-authorised brokers, but argues the firm should do more to find out who is supplying those brokers. It points to a UN resolution calling for sanctions, including the freezing of assets of individuals or companies helping Congolese armed groups through the trade in natural resources.
The report alleges Thaisarco's main supplier in the South Kivu region, the centre of the conflict, gets its tin ore from mines controlled by the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), one of the main warring factions. Its leaders include Rwandan Hutus involved in the 1994 genocide.
AMC has denied any wrongdoing, saying it has always followed UN guidance in its trade in the region and is in the process of implementing more thorough measures aimed at increasing the transparency of the tin trade.
"Both AMC and Thaisarco have always sought to comply with the requirements and recommendations of the UN in respect of minerals originating in the DRC. In accordance with this, Thaisarco purchases DRC minerals subject to a recently enhanced, formal and detailed due diligence programme which ultimately is aimed at providing transparency throughout the supply chain," the statement said.
The new industry-wide measures, know as the Tin Supply Chain Initiative, were launched on 1 July, after the Global Witness report was completed.
"The Supply Chain Initiative has traceability of the minerals as its key objective in order to ensure that the trade does not benefit renegade or rebel groups," AMC said. The foreign office issued a statement yesterday recognising that illegally traded minerals were "one of the factors in the instability in eastern DRC".
Source: The Guardian
Friday, July 20, 2012
Only a Transformed ANC can Lead South Africa to Prosperity
South Africa faces the pressing problems of unemployment, poverty, material inequality, failing education and health systems, and a sluggish economy. Consequently, there was some anticipation regarding the policy choices that would emerge from the recent African National Congress (ANC) 4th National Policy Conference, held from 26 to 29 June. Although ANC Secretary General Gwede Mantashe claimed that there were ‘robust’ and ‘candid’ discussions, it still remains unclear where the ANC is taking the country on key policy matters such as state intervention in the economy, fixing the education system and land reform. It is also questionable whether there were indeed open and frank discussions about the current ANC leadership. From proceedings at the policy conference it is clear that at this juncture the ANC is unable to provide the kind of inclusive and cohesive leadership urgently required to solve the country’s main challenges.
Scenario planning expert Clem Sunter, writing in his News24 online column of 7 June, says that the most economically successful countries have had periods of ‘inclusive leadership’ where the head of the country has managed to bring together disparate groups to work together towards the greater good. Unfortunately, the current ANC leadership continues to fail in this regard. The issue of nationalisation, which has for some time hindered foreign and domestic investment, is an example. Political analyst Steven Friedman, writing in the Business Day of 11 July, argues that the ‘ANC alliance includes both left-wingers who distrust business and racial nationalists who want to shift more assets from white to black hands’. Both sides ‘have an interest in restricting property rights’, he says. The ANC leadership is well aware of the various positions within the party concerning the issue of nationalisation and its task is to bring together opposing interest groups and work out a compromise that will address some of these concerns and build investor confidence. Improved confidence would give impetus to prospective and current investors to commit more to the South African economy and fuel economic growth.
To some extent it appears as though the policy conference resulted in some level of compromise between the different perspectives. In his closing address at the conference President Jacob Zuma said, ‘With regards to minerals, there was a broad consensus that minerals belong to the people as a whole and should be governed by the democratic developmental state in the interests of all South Africans. Mining should have a developmental impact and promote job creation. The state should also capture an equitable share of mineral resource rents and deploy them in the interests of long-term economic growth, development and transformation.’ This statement, however, seemed to be interpreted differently by different groups in the ANC. For example, the ANC Youth League, which has called for the wholesale nationalisation of mines without paying compensation, said in a statement, ‘We welcome … the resolution for the nationalisation of mines and other strategic sectors of the economy.’ However, this was disputed by National Executive member Enoch Godongwana, who said that the ANC had decided ‘not to pursue the nationalisation of mines’.
Interestingly, there seemed to be no consideration of the National Planning Commission’s (NPC) recommendations. Established by the Presidency, the NPC consists of 26 of some of the country’s brightest minds, who after a substantial period of consultation with people working in different sectors of society, diagnosed the causes of South Africa’s key problems and identified practical solutions. A key part of the problem facing the ANC appears to be that its top figures have failed to rise above their personal ambition for senior leadership positions. Consequently, the dynamics of the policy conference are framed by the leadership contest taking place in the run-up to the ANC National Conference in December. Seemingly, the key factor driving the contesting factions is the access it provides individuals and factions to state resources. Policy issues then become a proxy for leadership contestation. It therefore often matters more who supports certain policy positions than what the contents of those policies are.
The ANC should consider a system where members compete for positions in a transparent manner guided by a clear set of rules. This would enable delegates to select leaders based on their performance in the party and in government. Further, a political system based on the recommendations of the Frederik van Zyl Slabbert Commission on Electoral Reform, named after the late opposition politician, could be considered. The commission recommended a system geared towards the direct election of political leaders, which could ensure that the leaders are more responsible to the electorate than to factions in the party.
A step towards addressing some of the challenges the ANC faces would be for the party to urgently consider the recommendations of the 2010 National General Council, reiterated in the Organisational Renewal Discussion document. These state that:
The first recommendation is conceivable only if the current ANC leadership is able to look beyond narrow factional interests and realises the importance of acting in the interest of all South Africans, with a focus on the poor. Entrenched factionalism, as noted in the Organisational Renewal Discussion document, is detrimental to the greater good. Currently, it is clear that there are two factions: those who support the current President and status quo and those who seem to be clamouring for a new dispensation led by Deputy President Motlanthe. A courageous and decisive leadership would have opened up the debate on how to structure the issue of succession and initiated the development of a set of rules to guide the debate on the selection of the new leadership. Further, a principled and decisive leadership would have led the way in terms of concerns such as corruption. It would have stated publicly that those who are tainted by allegations of corruption cannot be allowed to lead the party and the country until such allegations are transparently and fairly investigated. Beyond the usual rhetoric, the present leadership has clearly been unsuccessful in decisively acting on corruption in the upper echelons of government.
The practice of cadre deployment has continued to have negative ramifications for government service delivery, as recently argued by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC). It is crucial that the ANC leadership leads the way in transforming the organisation into a modern political party that deploys people based on merit, skill and commitment to serving the country, rather than their allegiance to certain organisational factions.
The ruling party has to urgently grasp the fact that a robust civil society, a free media and independent judiciary are critical for an active and mobilised general population that can contribute to strengthening the country. It is therefore discouraging when leading ANC figures actively stifle crucial components of our democracy. Recently the Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs, Edna Molewa, made the absurd statement that there was a ‘war against the state’ because human rights organisations took the government to court for failing to provide adequate drinking water to poor communities. Nelson Mandela’s treason trial lawyer George Bizos warned on 17 July that our politicians do not accept the media’s role and rightly stated, ‘We cannot allow politicians to reduce us to praise singers.’ Instead of seeking to undermine the foundations of our democracy, the ruling party’s leadership has to actively engage all citizens of the country.
Bringing together the range of stakeholders in South Africa to solve the country’s challenges, such as those pertaining to the economy and to education, will provide a foundation that will drive the country into a new era in governance. In addition, such a path has the capability to ignite institutional transformation that will contribute to reviving the country’s sluggish economy. Indeed, all South Africans deserve the dignified and prosperous life aspired to in the constitution and the ANC leadership has a duty to facilitate this.
Source: ISS
Scenario planning expert Clem Sunter, writing in his News24 online column of 7 June, says that the most economically successful countries have had periods of ‘inclusive leadership’ where the head of the country has managed to bring together disparate groups to work together towards the greater good. Unfortunately, the current ANC leadership continues to fail in this regard. The issue of nationalisation, which has for some time hindered foreign and domestic investment, is an example. Political analyst Steven Friedman, writing in the Business Day of 11 July, argues that the ‘ANC alliance includes both left-wingers who distrust business and racial nationalists who want to shift more assets from white to black hands’. Both sides ‘have an interest in restricting property rights’, he says. The ANC leadership is well aware of the various positions within the party concerning the issue of nationalisation and its task is to bring together opposing interest groups and work out a compromise that will address some of these concerns and build investor confidence. Improved confidence would give impetus to prospective and current investors to commit more to the South African economy and fuel economic growth.
To some extent it appears as though the policy conference resulted in some level of compromise between the different perspectives. In his closing address at the conference President Jacob Zuma said, ‘With regards to minerals, there was a broad consensus that minerals belong to the people as a whole and should be governed by the democratic developmental state in the interests of all South Africans. Mining should have a developmental impact and promote job creation. The state should also capture an equitable share of mineral resource rents and deploy them in the interests of long-term economic growth, development and transformation.’ This statement, however, seemed to be interpreted differently by different groups in the ANC. For example, the ANC Youth League, which has called for the wholesale nationalisation of mines without paying compensation, said in a statement, ‘We welcome … the resolution for the nationalisation of mines and other strategic sectors of the economy.’ However, this was disputed by National Executive member Enoch Godongwana, who said that the ANC had decided ‘not to pursue the nationalisation of mines’.
Interestingly, there seemed to be no consideration of the National Planning Commission’s (NPC) recommendations. Established by the Presidency, the NPC consists of 26 of some of the country’s brightest minds, who after a substantial period of consultation with people working in different sectors of society, diagnosed the causes of South Africa’s key problems and identified practical solutions. A key part of the problem facing the ANC appears to be that its top figures have failed to rise above their personal ambition for senior leadership positions. Consequently, the dynamics of the policy conference are framed by the leadership contest taking place in the run-up to the ANC National Conference in December. Seemingly, the key factor driving the contesting factions is the access it provides individuals and factions to state resources. Policy issues then become a proxy for leadership contestation. It therefore often matters more who supports certain policy positions than what the contents of those policies are.
The ANC should consider a system where members compete for positions in a transparent manner guided by a clear set of rules. This would enable delegates to select leaders based on their performance in the party and in government. Further, a political system based on the recommendations of the Frederik van Zyl Slabbert Commission on Electoral Reform, named after the late opposition politician, could be considered. The commission recommended a system geared towards the direct election of political leaders, which could ensure that the leaders are more responsible to the electorate than to factions in the party.
A step towards addressing some of the challenges the ANC faces would be for the party to urgently consider the recommendations of the 2010 National General Council, reiterated in the Organisational Renewal Discussion document. These state that:
- It is critical for the party to have a resilient, courageous, principled and decisive leadership.
- The rejuvenation of the ANC will require a committed and conscious cadre.
- An active civil society and a mobilised population are essential for the renewal of the party.
The first recommendation is conceivable only if the current ANC leadership is able to look beyond narrow factional interests and realises the importance of acting in the interest of all South Africans, with a focus on the poor. Entrenched factionalism, as noted in the Organisational Renewal Discussion document, is detrimental to the greater good. Currently, it is clear that there are two factions: those who support the current President and status quo and those who seem to be clamouring for a new dispensation led by Deputy President Motlanthe. A courageous and decisive leadership would have opened up the debate on how to structure the issue of succession and initiated the development of a set of rules to guide the debate on the selection of the new leadership. Further, a principled and decisive leadership would have led the way in terms of concerns such as corruption. It would have stated publicly that those who are tainted by allegations of corruption cannot be allowed to lead the party and the country until such allegations are transparently and fairly investigated. Beyond the usual rhetoric, the present leadership has clearly been unsuccessful in decisively acting on corruption in the upper echelons of government.
The practice of cadre deployment has continued to have negative ramifications for government service delivery, as recently argued by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC). It is crucial that the ANC leadership leads the way in transforming the organisation into a modern political party that deploys people based on merit, skill and commitment to serving the country, rather than their allegiance to certain organisational factions.
The ruling party has to urgently grasp the fact that a robust civil society, a free media and independent judiciary are critical for an active and mobilised general population that can contribute to strengthening the country. It is therefore discouraging when leading ANC figures actively stifle crucial components of our democracy. Recently the Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs, Edna Molewa, made the absurd statement that there was a ‘war against the state’ because human rights organisations took the government to court for failing to provide adequate drinking water to poor communities. Nelson Mandela’s treason trial lawyer George Bizos warned on 17 July that our politicians do not accept the media’s role and rightly stated, ‘We cannot allow politicians to reduce us to praise singers.’ Instead of seeking to undermine the foundations of our democracy, the ruling party’s leadership has to actively engage all citizens of the country.
Bringing together the range of stakeholders in South Africa to solve the country’s challenges, such as those pertaining to the economy and to education, will provide a foundation that will drive the country into a new era in governance. In addition, such a path has the capability to ignite institutional transformation that will contribute to reviving the country’s sluggish economy. Indeed, all South Africans deserve the dignified and prosperous life aspired to in the constitution and the ANC leadership has a duty to facilitate this.
Source: ISS
ANC hails Wolmarans prosecution
The ANC has welcomed the prosecution of former Rustenburg mayor Matthews Wolmarans.
“The successful prosecution... is a demonstration once more that this country cannot afford crime in whatever form and irrespective of who commits it,” African National Congress spokesman Jackson Mthembu said on Friday. “The ANC... is disappointed that a senior member of the organisation... has been found guilty of the murder of a whistleblower and a fellow ANC councillor,” he said in a statement.
Wolmarans was jailed for 20 years on Tuesday for the murder of Moss Phakoe. The Rustenburg High Court also sentenced Wolmarans's former bodyguard Enoch Matshaba to life in prison. Matshaba was arrested on August 4, 2011, after a witness told the police in Bela Bela about the crime. He saw Matshaba holding a gun at Phakoe's home just after hearing two gunshots. Wolmarans was arrested on September 24, 2011, together with Amos Mataboge and Oupa Mphomane. Charges against Mataboge and Mphomane were dropped.
Phakoe was shot dead at his home in Rustenburg north in March 2009 after handing over a dossier detailing corruption in the municipality to high-ranking ANC officials, including secretary general Gwede Mantashe and President Jacob Zuma. Phakoe also gave the dossier to former co-operative governance minister Sicelo Shiceka, in the presence of Wolmarans.
Jackson said: “The ANC has never lived with nor tolerated political assassins and we therefore condemn in strongest terms the act of political murder instigated by the former mayor.” The ANC would refer the matter to its national disciplinary committee. “We are confident that our disciplinary structures will deal with matter expeditiously and arrive at a sanction that will be commensurate to the serious offence committed by these comrades,” said Mthembu.
Source: IoL
“The successful prosecution... is a demonstration once more that this country cannot afford crime in whatever form and irrespective of who commits it,” African National Congress spokesman Jackson Mthembu said on Friday. “The ANC... is disappointed that a senior member of the organisation... has been found guilty of the murder of a whistleblower and a fellow ANC councillor,” he said in a statement.
Wolmarans was jailed for 20 years on Tuesday for the murder of Moss Phakoe. The Rustenburg High Court also sentenced Wolmarans's former bodyguard Enoch Matshaba to life in prison. Matshaba was arrested on August 4, 2011, after a witness told the police in Bela Bela about the crime. He saw Matshaba holding a gun at Phakoe's home just after hearing two gunshots. Wolmarans was arrested on September 24, 2011, together with Amos Mataboge and Oupa Mphomane. Charges against Mataboge and Mphomane were dropped.
Phakoe was shot dead at his home in Rustenburg north in March 2009 after handing over a dossier detailing corruption in the municipality to high-ranking ANC officials, including secretary general Gwede Mantashe and President Jacob Zuma. Phakoe also gave the dossier to former co-operative governance minister Sicelo Shiceka, in the presence of Wolmarans.
Jackson said: “The ANC has never lived with nor tolerated political assassins and we therefore condemn in strongest terms the act of political murder instigated by the former mayor.” The ANC would refer the matter to its national disciplinary committee. “We are confident that our disciplinary structures will deal with matter expeditiously and arrive at a sanction that will be commensurate to the serious offence committed by these comrades,” said Mthembu.
Source: IoL
Selebi to be released on medical parole
FORMER national police commissioner Jackie Selebi, convicted of corruption, will be released from prison on Friday, Correctional Services Minister Sibusiso Ndebele announced in Pretoria. "Mr Selebi will be going home today (Friday)," he told a media briefing in Pretoria. "The department has limited capacity to provide for palliative care needed by some offenders," he said.
Palliative care meant Selebi would be kept comfortable until his death, as there was no hope of him recovering. An 11-member medical parole advisory board met on June 20 and recommended the release of six offenders, including Selebi. Three of them had since died, Mr Ndebele said.
The minister said all offender and remand detainees had the right to adequate healthcare services, as enshrined in the constitution. "In terms of the Correctional Services Act, the department must provide healthcare services and refer patients to external healthcare facilities for secondary and tertiary levels of healthcare," he said.
The Correctional Services Act was reviewed, with the Correctional Matters Amendment Act approved in May last year. According to Section 29A and B of the act, an offender, nurse, medical practitioner, spouse, guardian or legal representative could apply for parole on a detainee’s behalf. Criteria for medical parole included a terminal, chronic or progressive medical condition, which had caused permanent or irreversible deterioration to the detainee’s state of physical health.
Medical parole advisory board chairman Dr Victor Ramathesele said Selebi’s condition qualified him for medical parole. "As the medical parole advisory board we examine every applying patient. We went to Steve Biko hospital and found him to be at the end stages of renal disease, undergoing perennial dialysis daily," he said.
James Selfe, Democratic Alliance spokesperson for correctional services, said it was important to ensure that proper procedure was followed when the decision on Selebi’s medical parole was made. "The old criteria limited medical parole to those who suffered from a terminal illness," he said. "This made it hard to determine who deserved medical parole. We need to ensure that procedures to ensure the interests of the victims are considered take place, including a hearing to decide these matters."
Mr Selfe said he would question Mr Ndebele on this in the National Assembly. Selebi was the president of Interpol at the time of the investigation of claims that he received money from convicted drug trafficker and police informer Glenn Agliotti.
He was convicted of corruption on July 2 2010 and handed a 15-year jail sentence. Selebi appealed against the corruption conviction in the Supreme Court of Appeal but his appeal was denied in December 2011. He collapsed at his home in Waterkloof, Pretoria, while watching the judgment on television.
It was decided he would stay in the medical wing of Pretoria Central Prison indefinitely as he suffered from diabetes and kidney disease. Doctors who were treating Selebi at Steve Biko Academic Hospital said his medical management was complicated.
"It was apparent from his admission that Mr Selebi had various chronic illnesses and thus needed constant medical care by suitably qualified practitioners. Because of his poor health prognosis and soaring hypertension levels, as well as unstable and uncontrollable sugar diabetic levels, he was referred to the Steve Biko Academic Hospital on December 12," correctional services commissioner Tom Moyane said at the time.
Source: Business Day
Palliative care meant Selebi would be kept comfortable until his death, as there was no hope of him recovering. An 11-member medical parole advisory board met on June 20 and recommended the release of six offenders, including Selebi. Three of them had since died, Mr Ndebele said.
The minister said all offender and remand detainees had the right to adequate healthcare services, as enshrined in the constitution. "In terms of the Correctional Services Act, the department must provide healthcare services and refer patients to external healthcare facilities for secondary and tertiary levels of healthcare," he said.
The Correctional Services Act was reviewed, with the Correctional Matters Amendment Act approved in May last year. According to Section 29A and B of the act, an offender, nurse, medical practitioner, spouse, guardian or legal representative could apply for parole on a detainee’s behalf. Criteria for medical parole included a terminal, chronic or progressive medical condition, which had caused permanent or irreversible deterioration to the detainee’s state of physical health.
Medical parole advisory board chairman Dr Victor Ramathesele said Selebi’s condition qualified him for medical parole. "As the medical parole advisory board we examine every applying patient. We went to Steve Biko hospital and found him to be at the end stages of renal disease, undergoing perennial dialysis daily," he said.
James Selfe, Democratic Alliance spokesperson for correctional services, said it was important to ensure that proper procedure was followed when the decision on Selebi’s medical parole was made. "The old criteria limited medical parole to those who suffered from a terminal illness," he said. "This made it hard to determine who deserved medical parole. We need to ensure that procedures to ensure the interests of the victims are considered take place, including a hearing to decide these matters."
Mr Selfe said he would question Mr Ndebele on this in the National Assembly. Selebi was the president of Interpol at the time of the investigation of claims that he received money from convicted drug trafficker and police informer Glenn Agliotti.
He was convicted of corruption on July 2 2010 and handed a 15-year jail sentence. Selebi appealed against the corruption conviction in the Supreme Court of Appeal but his appeal was denied in December 2011. He collapsed at his home in Waterkloof, Pretoria, while watching the judgment on television.
It was decided he would stay in the medical wing of Pretoria Central Prison indefinitely as he suffered from diabetes and kidney disease. Doctors who were treating Selebi at Steve Biko Academic Hospital said his medical management was complicated.
"It was apparent from his admission that Mr Selebi had various chronic illnesses and thus needed constant medical care by suitably qualified practitioners. Because of his poor health prognosis and soaring hypertension levels, as well as unstable and uncontrollable sugar diabetic levels, he was referred to the Steve Biko Academic Hospital on December 12," correctional services commissioner Tom Moyane said at the time.
Source: Business Day
Bridging the African Union's divides
Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma's success at the AU will be measured by her ability to gain consensus among heads of state, writes Liesl Louw-Vaudran.
When the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was trying to cajole the rest of Africa into accepting his grand idea of a United States of Africa, it was rumoured that he offered Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma the job of prime minister if she would back him. At the time she was South Africa’s minister of foreign affairs.
A lot has changed since that summit in Accra, Ghana, in 2007 when a number of smaller African states gave in to Gaddafi’s bullying and buying of votes. Yet Dlamini-Zuma was duly elected as chairperson of the African Union Commission by a majority of heads of state at its 19th summit in Addis Ababa on July 15.
In effect, she will be the prime minister of an institution that aims to be the continental decision-making body. Of course, things are complicated because she will not be reporting to one executive president but to 54, give or take a few, depending on how many coups there have been on the continent.
The way South Africa lobbied for votes since the last unsuccessful bid for the position in January will not make her job any easier. Some countries are accusing South Africa of using the same tactics of which Gaddafi was guilty.
When she takes up office in Addis Ababa in three months’ time, her first task will have to be an attempt at some radical improvements at the commission – an institution bogged down by inefficiency, understaffing and underspending. Only 52% of posts are filled and the average underspending is 37%.
On this score she will probably do very well, or at least better than her predecessors. Walking into the AU Commission cannot be much worse than walking into the portfolio of home affairs in 2009.
For a while, Addis Ababa has been considered by diplomats to be a hardship post – a perception reinforced by the strain of working in a country with terrible phone infrastructure, restrictive laws and very little to offer expats.
The Anglophone and Francophone divide at the commission is also a reality – the men in boubous (robes) do not sit at the same lunch table as the East Africans in suits – but she will be able to use her skills as a South African to convince bureaucrats from diverse backgrounds to work together.
Despite what the rulebooks say, she will probably have to define her role and relationship with the heads of state as things go along. This she has to do with the rotating head of state who gets the position of AU chairperson for a year – a title often confused with that of the commission chairperson. Benin’s President Yayi Boni has this job at the moment and is doing it relatively well, but sometimes the AU chair is largely symbolic, especially when it is occupied by leaders such as Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang Nguema, who filled this post last year.
Following the extensive battle to get Dlamini-Zuma elected, many are claiming that she will raise the profile of the AU. Certainly the drama between her and her predecessor, Jean Ping, has captured imaginations, but it will take much more than this to restore the credibility of the commission and of the AU. This is true of the union’s image internationally and among ordinary Africans.
Dlamini-Zuma will have the power and influence of South Africa behind her, but it will not always be an advantage given South Africa’s much-criticised Africa policy. Ping, also a former foreign minister, was unable to get heads of state to agree on almost anything and was decried for being weak.
Still, heads of state are unclear about how much power the commission chairperson should have. Former Mali president Alpha Omar Konaré clashed with many of his peers when he had this position. After his term ended the commission chair was again occupied by a minister, just as it was during the time of the Organisation of African Unity.
Consequently, when half of Africa’s heads of state at last year’s summit in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, decided to recognise the fledgling Libyan National Transitional Council and the other half – led by South Africa – refused to do so, Ping could not do much about it. The AU’s road map for Libya was completely ignored by Nato – a huge embarrassment for Africa.
Earlier this year, when some agreed with Malawi’s president that the International Criminal Court arrest warrant against Omar al-Bashir of Sudan should be respected and the other half wanted the 19th AU summit (that just took place) to be moved to Addis Ababa, Africa again looked hopelessly divided.
These divisions and the stalemate that preceded Sunday’s election made some analysts fear a total breakdown of the institution. Some advised that the AU should abandon efforts to model itself on the European Union, but rather look at a loose structure, such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, leaving integration up to the regions.
For now, the AU’s reputation has been salvaged and there is real hope for a more efficient commission with Dlamini-Zuma at the helm.
A huge advantage for her is that she knows the AU commission very well. After all, she helped to implement its constitutive act in the early years after its creation in 2002.
“Your foreign minister doesn’t take no for an answer,” I remember a West African foreign minister telling me at an AU summit in Addis Ababa in 2003. It was during a marathon session on getting a resolution on gender parity pushed through the agenda.
At the time Dlamini-Zuma showed the same unwavering determination and work ethic she has become known for at home. It was not unusual for the media to be called to press briefings by Dlamini-Zuma at 2am or 3am to explain the latest AU decisions.
Ten years after its creation, things at the AU have not moved as quickly as what she and Thabo Mbeki, then her commander in chief, had envisioned. Funding remains a huge problem. More than half ($160-million) of its budget of $275-million for 2012 is paid for by external partners, mostly the European Union. An audit of the commission finalised in 2007 recommended vast reforms of it, but little of this has been implemented by Dlamini-Zuma’s predecessor.
An efficient AU will hugely improve its relations with international donors, especially now that this kind of money is getting scarce. Real action in solving peace and security issues will also improve the AU’s standing in the eyes of its citizens. But achieving credibility and raising the profile of the AU will ultimately depend not on the commission chairperson, but on the quality of leadership in its member states.
Source: Mail & Guardian
When the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was trying to cajole the rest of Africa into accepting his grand idea of a United States of Africa, it was rumoured that he offered Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma the job of prime minister if she would back him. At the time she was South Africa’s minister of foreign affairs.
A lot has changed since that summit in Accra, Ghana, in 2007 when a number of smaller African states gave in to Gaddafi’s bullying and buying of votes. Yet Dlamini-Zuma was duly elected as chairperson of the African Union Commission by a majority of heads of state at its 19th summit in Addis Ababa on July 15.
In effect, she will be the prime minister of an institution that aims to be the continental decision-making body. Of course, things are complicated because she will not be reporting to one executive president but to 54, give or take a few, depending on how many coups there have been on the continent.
The way South Africa lobbied for votes since the last unsuccessful bid for the position in January will not make her job any easier. Some countries are accusing South Africa of using the same tactics of which Gaddafi was guilty.
When she takes up office in Addis Ababa in three months’ time, her first task will have to be an attempt at some radical improvements at the commission – an institution bogged down by inefficiency, understaffing and underspending. Only 52% of posts are filled and the average underspending is 37%.
On this score she will probably do very well, or at least better than her predecessors. Walking into the AU Commission cannot be much worse than walking into the portfolio of home affairs in 2009.
For a while, Addis Ababa has been considered by diplomats to be a hardship post – a perception reinforced by the strain of working in a country with terrible phone infrastructure, restrictive laws and very little to offer expats.
The Anglophone and Francophone divide at the commission is also a reality – the men in boubous (robes) do not sit at the same lunch table as the East Africans in suits – but she will be able to use her skills as a South African to convince bureaucrats from diverse backgrounds to work together.
Despite what the rulebooks say, she will probably have to define her role and relationship with the heads of state as things go along. This she has to do with the rotating head of state who gets the position of AU chairperson for a year – a title often confused with that of the commission chairperson. Benin’s President Yayi Boni has this job at the moment and is doing it relatively well, but sometimes the AU chair is largely symbolic, especially when it is occupied by leaders such as Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang Nguema, who filled this post last year.
Following the extensive battle to get Dlamini-Zuma elected, many are claiming that she will raise the profile of the AU. Certainly the drama between her and her predecessor, Jean Ping, has captured imaginations, but it will take much more than this to restore the credibility of the commission and of the AU. This is true of the union’s image internationally and among ordinary Africans.
Dlamini-Zuma will have the power and influence of South Africa behind her, but it will not always be an advantage given South Africa’s much-criticised Africa policy. Ping, also a former foreign minister, was unable to get heads of state to agree on almost anything and was decried for being weak.
Still, heads of state are unclear about how much power the commission chairperson should have. Former Mali president Alpha Omar Konaré clashed with many of his peers when he had this position. After his term ended the commission chair was again occupied by a minister, just as it was during the time of the Organisation of African Unity.
Consequently, when half of Africa’s heads of state at last year’s summit in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, decided to recognise the fledgling Libyan National Transitional Council and the other half – led by South Africa – refused to do so, Ping could not do much about it. The AU’s road map for Libya was completely ignored by Nato – a huge embarrassment for Africa.
Earlier this year, when some agreed with Malawi’s president that the International Criminal Court arrest warrant against Omar al-Bashir of Sudan should be respected and the other half wanted the 19th AU summit (that just took place) to be moved to Addis Ababa, Africa again looked hopelessly divided.
These divisions and the stalemate that preceded Sunday’s election made some analysts fear a total breakdown of the institution. Some advised that the AU should abandon efforts to model itself on the European Union, but rather look at a loose structure, such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, leaving integration up to the regions.
For now, the AU’s reputation has been salvaged and there is real hope for a more efficient commission with Dlamini-Zuma at the helm.
A huge advantage for her is that she knows the AU commission very well. After all, she helped to implement its constitutive act in the early years after its creation in 2002.
“Your foreign minister doesn’t take no for an answer,” I remember a West African foreign minister telling me at an AU summit in Addis Ababa in 2003. It was during a marathon session on getting a resolution on gender parity pushed through the agenda.
At the time Dlamini-Zuma showed the same unwavering determination and work ethic she has become known for at home. It was not unusual for the media to be called to press briefings by Dlamini-Zuma at 2am or 3am to explain the latest AU decisions.
Ten years after its creation, things at the AU have not moved as quickly as what she and Thabo Mbeki, then her commander in chief, had envisioned. Funding remains a huge problem. More than half ($160-million) of its budget of $275-million for 2012 is paid for by external partners, mostly the European Union. An audit of the commission finalised in 2007 recommended vast reforms of it, but little of this has been implemented by Dlamini-Zuma’s predecessor.
An efficient AU will hugely improve its relations with international donors, especially now that this kind of money is getting scarce. Real action in solving peace and security issues will also improve the AU’s standing in the eyes of its citizens. But achieving credibility and raising the profile of the AU will ultimately depend not on the commission chairperson, but on the quality of leadership in its member states.
Source: Mail & Guardian
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Fraudster nabbed by the Hawks
Convicted fraudster Visham Panday, who has been on the run since February, has been nabbed by the Pietermaritzburg Hawks. Panday, 32, was first arrested in December after allegedly posing as a Dr Calvin Naidoo in 2009, promising a woman a lucrative job with his company in the US and persuading her to invest her life savings of about R450 000 in a business. The woman received no returns and opened a fraud case.
On Wednesday, Brigadier Keith Flack, the acting provincial commander overseeing the organised crime unit, said Panday was arrested at about 10am by officers who had been searching for him since he absconded from court in February this year. Flack said Panday was being detained at the Durban Central police cells and would appear in court on Thursday.
Panday was granted bail of R25 000 in the Durban Magistrate’s Court for the fraud charge in December last year, but was arrested on the day of his release for assaulting his girlfriend, Vanishree Naidoo. The State then revoked his bail, pending an inquiry into whether he had breached his bail conditions by leaving Durban without permission and by assaulting a State witness. During the inquiry in January, the investigating officer, Warrant Officer Stephen Gouws, testified he feared Panday would abscond if his bail was reinstated. However, magistrate Anita Govender ruled in Panday’s favour and reinstated his bail. She found that he had not breached his bail conditions, as the court’s jurisdiction had not been explained to him. Govender also chastised the State for failing to disclose the facts relating to his previous conviction during his bail application, saying that this was pertinent information. It was after this inquiry, when his bail was reinstated, that he absconded.
Meanwhile, a Phoenix doctor and seven others were arrested on Wednesday in connection with a life insurance scam. Colonel Vincent Mdunge of the SAPS said the doctor and funeral parlour owners had signed death certificate documents in 2010 that allowed a woman to claim R500 000 from 1lifedirect insurance company when no death had occurred.
Source: IoL
On Wednesday, Brigadier Keith Flack, the acting provincial commander overseeing the organised crime unit, said Panday was arrested at about 10am by officers who had been searching for him since he absconded from court in February this year. Flack said Panday was being detained at the Durban Central police cells and would appear in court on Thursday.
Panday was granted bail of R25 000 in the Durban Magistrate’s Court for the fraud charge in December last year, but was arrested on the day of his release for assaulting his girlfriend, Vanishree Naidoo. The State then revoked his bail, pending an inquiry into whether he had breached his bail conditions by leaving Durban without permission and by assaulting a State witness. During the inquiry in January, the investigating officer, Warrant Officer Stephen Gouws, testified he feared Panday would abscond if his bail was reinstated. However, magistrate Anita Govender ruled in Panday’s favour and reinstated his bail. She found that he had not breached his bail conditions, as the court’s jurisdiction had not been explained to him. Govender also chastised the State for failing to disclose the facts relating to his previous conviction during his bail application, saying that this was pertinent information. It was after this inquiry, when his bail was reinstated, that he absconded.
Meanwhile, a Phoenix doctor and seven others were arrested on Wednesday in connection with a life insurance scam. Colonel Vincent Mdunge of the SAPS said the doctor and funeral parlour owners had signed death certificate documents in 2010 that allowed a woman to claim R500 000 from 1lifedirect insurance company when no death had occurred.
Source: IoL
Solidarity takes SAPS to court over affirmative action policy
Trade union Solidarity filed papers at the Johannesburg Labour Court, asking for the SA Police Service (SAPS) affirmative action plan to be declared invalid.
Solidarity deputy general secretary Dirk Hermann said in a statement that the union aimed to dismantle the entire plan. "We cannot continue taking individual cases to court. Now for the first time we are taking to court the root of the problem, namely absolute racial representation," he said. The union had already taken the SAPS to court in 14 separate cases.
Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa, Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant and police commissioner General Riah Phiyega were named as respondents in the documents. Mthethwa's spokesman Zweli Mnisi said he had not seen the papers, and could not comment on its contents. "[It is] safe to say if the matter is brought before court, then our legal team will handle the matter accordingly."
In the papers Solidarity claimed that the SAPS's affirmative action plan amounted to social manipulation based on blatant race and gender quotas. It said the 'ideal' race-based targets set by the SAPS affirmative action plan between 2010 to 2014 were 79.35 percent for Africans, 2.46 percent for Indians, 8.85 percent for coloureds and 9.34 percent for whites. The union claimed this was unconstitutional. "Under the Constitution it is impermissible to discriminate on the grounds of race and gender. The Employment Equity Act, in outlawing discrimination, echoes this principle," the papers said. It said the "naked pursuit" of demographic representation based on racial factors can never be lawful. "The enactments legitimate affirmative action measures in order to redress the inequities of the past, but they positively decline to sanction social engineering mechanically designed to produce racial and gender representation in the future." It said that the plan did not take into account the regional differences in racial demographics. "For example, the representation of coloured people is made to depend on national demographics despite the preponderance of such persons in the Western Cape."
Hermann said the "problem" with absolute racial representation was that employers were beginning to "believe it was proper thing to do". "Solidarity wants to petition the court to give its verdict on the question of whether this practice is allowed by the Employment Equity Act and the Constitution of South Africa," he said. "The irony is that this racial ideology is hitting ordinary South Africans the hardest: people who are victims of poor service in various areas, including poor policing service."
He said the court date for the case had not been set yet.
Source: Times Live
Solidarity deputy general secretary Dirk Hermann said in a statement that the union aimed to dismantle the entire plan. "We cannot continue taking individual cases to court. Now for the first time we are taking to court the root of the problem, namely absolute racial representation," he said. The union had already taken the SAPS to court in 14 separate cases.
Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa, Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant and police commissioner General Riah Phiyega were named as respondents in the documents. Mthethwa's spokesman Zweli Mnisi said he had not seen the papers, and could not comment on its contents. "[It is] safe to say if the matter is brought before court, then our legal team will handle the matter accordingly."
In the papers Solidarity claimed that the SAPS's affirmative action plan amounted to social manipulation based on blatant race and gender quotas. It said the 'ideal' race-based targets set by the SAPS affirmative action plan between 2010 to 2014 were 79.35 percent for Africans, 2.46 percent for Indians, 8.85 percent for coloureds and 9.34 percent for whites. The union claimed this was unconstitutional. "Under the Constitution it is impermissible to discriminate on the grounds of race and gender. The Employment Equity Act, in outlawing discrimination, echoes this principle," the papers said. It said the "naked pursuit" of demographic representation based on racial factors can never be lawful. "The enactments legitimate affirmative action measures in order to redress the inequities of the past, but they positively decline to sanction social engineering mechanically designed to produce racial and gender representation in the future." It said that the plan did not take into account the regional differences in racial demographics. "For example, the representation of coloured people is made to depend on national demographics despite the preponderance of such persons in the Western Cape."
Hermann said the "problem" with absolute racial representation was that employers were beginning to "believe it was proper thing to do". "Solidarity wants to petition the court to give its verdict on the question of whether this practice is allowed by the Employment Equity Act and the Constitution of South Africa," he said. "The irony is that this racial ideology is hitting ordinary South Africans the hardest: people who are victims of poor service in various areas, including poor policing service."
He said the court date for the case had not been set yet.
Source: Times Live
Politics & scandal: From 'sit down' to 'step aside'
While disgraced officials may resign, firing them is tricky. SA's parties are trying to come up with ways to deal with those who try to brazen it out. When Humphrey Mmemezi, found guilty of contravening the provincial legislature’s code of conduct and ethics, resigned from his position as Gauteng housing minister last week, it came as something of a surprise.
Such displays of "honour" are not entirely unprecedented. It has happened before, and recently, even, but rarely enough that it's always surprising. More often than not, "honour" is conspicuously absent. How do non-performing politicians and those accused of corruption manage to hold on to their jobs in the face of huge public opposition?
The law's the law
In part, it's because they're citizens too, and so are protected by the laws of the country. Grant Masterson, manager of the African Peer Review Mechanism at the Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa, said that like any other employee, politicians in the civil service are protected by the Basic Conditions of Employment Act "[President Jacob Zuma] found with Vusi Pikoli that it's not easy to fire someone," he said, adding, "It is valid that you can't just fire someone without due process, good cause and evidence."
Masterson also pointed out that politics and influence also play a role in whether a party takes stern action against its members. The defiant posturing by political figures in the middle of a scandal so often seen in the media sometimes sends the message to their political superiors that they are not prepared to fall quietly on their sword, he said. Perhaps this provides some clue as to why Mmemezi has not been asked to vacate his seat in the legislature.
With the ANC's elective conference in Mangaung just months away, it might be imprudent for members of the Gauteng branches to get on the wrong side of a man who has powerful patrons within the party, among them Gauteng ANC chairperson Paul Mashatile. Offending the wrong people could see cadres bumped down the party lists at Mangaung. Mmemezi isn’t going anywhere. As an elected official, he can’t be ousted from his seat. He must offer to resign or else have his membership in the party he represents terminated.
Murky waters
Party discipline is tricky and convoluted. It’s governed by the party’s constitution, which does not always provide the degree of clarity needed to effect swift justice. ANC spokesperson Keith Khoza said that while the constitution of the ANC discusses issues of party discipline it does not specify what action should be taken if a member has been found guilty of committing an offence, such as corruption, in government. In such cases, the party relies on the rule of law. "We allow the law enforcement agencies to exercise their responsibility in dealing with issues of corruption or crimes that have been committed," he said. But relying on the law will not bring about the swift justice that members of the public want to see when there are serious allegations of fraud.
The Public Service Commission, which monitors and evaluates administration, has in the past reported on the state’s poor capacity to investigate and resolve cases of alleged corruption internally and the reluctance in government to refer matters to the police for investigation. It pointed out that even in cases where local and national government officials had been found guilty of fraud through internal processes, there is a tendency to simply give written warnings and not to take action against officials.
Mind the gap
Khoza said discussions are currently being held in the ANC on how to address the gap between allegations of corruption and conviction in a court of law. One way may be through the formation of an “integrity committee,” he said, but this idea had yet to be finalised.
According to Nkenke Kekana, spokesperson for the ANC in Gauteng, the integrity committee is a resolution of the Limpopo conference, which elected Zuma almost four years ago. Gauteng is the first province to establish an integrity committee, and Mmemezi was the first ANC member it investigated.
Another idea, flighted at the ANC’s policy conference earlier this month, is that cadres facing charges of corruption be required to “step aside” from their public position until investigations had been completed. This could help avoid controversies, such as that involving Northern Cape ANC chairperson, John Block. Block has been facing charges of fraud and corruption since 2010 in case that is expected to be resolved no earlier than next year.
Opposition parties are quick to point out the need for internal disciplinary efficiencies.
Lyndall Shope-Mafole, acting general secretary of the Congress of the People (Cope), said that the party had learned from the experiences of the ANC, and has tried hard to ensure that disciplinary issues are resolved as quickly as possible. Shope-Mafole said that, as evidenced by the case of former ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema, ANC disciplinary issues can drag on for months and even then there is the possibility of appealing to the NEC, the Congress, and even going to court. "It doesn't work. It makes the organisation ungovernable," she said. She said Cope’s disciplinary processes are run by an independent committee and all efforts are made to resolve disciplinary matters as quickly as possible, and that issues such as corruption, fraud and bringing the party into disrepute are taken very seriously.
The party, which has been riven by faction-fighting almost since its inception, famously expelled its co-founder Mbhazima Shilowa after an internal disciplinary committee found him guilty of corruption. This was followed by a flurry of expulsions, seen by some as evidence of a purge of those still loyal to Shilowa.
Quick isn't easy
The Democratic Alliance’s federal constitution allows for the immediate expulsion of a member convicted of a serious crime, such as corruption. Still, James Selfe, chairperson of the DA’s federal executive, said that in cases of misconduct it can sometimes be difficult to act with the firmness the party would like. "The party must prove beyond reasonable doubt that a member is guilty, yet the party does not have powers of subpoena or investigation. Very often cases are dismissed, or not even brought, because it is impossible to climb this evidential mountain," he said.
Selfe also said that the fact that the decision to expel a member could be challenged in court also posed problems for a party wanting to rid itself of an embarrassing member. In 2001, Peter Marais, who had been expelled from the DA and sacked from his position as mayor of Cape Town, was reinstated after winning a case in the Cape High Court. After a series of party-hopping moves Marais eventually joined Cope.
The party is now considering a discussion document which will lay out the procedure for dealing with poorly performing public representatives. Selfe said this "poor performance procedure" would identify ways in which the party could help members improve their performance. Those who don’t improve could be moved to other positions, or out of the party entirely.
Sending the wrong signals
Meanwhile Parliament is in the process of finalising a policy that will set more stringent requirements for MPs' attendance at Parliament, a move that could in future see lazy public officials axed.
National Assembly speaker Max Sisulu has said that if there are no consequences for non-attendance from Parliament itself, it would send the wrong signals to both society and MPs. Moloto Mothapo, spokesperson for the ANC’s chief whip, said the policy would outline various punitive measures, from docking salaries to the loss of membership, for those who are absent from parliament without good cause. "The rules will then decide after how long one has been absent from Parliament he or she ceases to be a member of Parliament," he said.
Whether improved parliamentary and party discipline can make a difference to the performance and conduct of elected officials remains to be seen. For now, as before, South African political parties are for the most part left scratching their head about what to do with the more obstinate of their political dead wood. "To err is human; to forgive is divine," Hlongwa told the Gauteng ANC press conference last week.
It seems there is still much to divine about integrity in South African politics.
Source: Mail & Guardian
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
And what is our government doing (about education)?
As thousands of pious (and often well-meaning) citizens across South Africa congratulate themselves for contributing 67 minutes of their time to a worthy cause on Nelson Mandela’s birthday today (perhaps unconsciously trying to absolve themselves from responsibility for redressing the inequality of opportunity in our country on the other 364 days, 22 hours and 53 minutes of the year) I wonder what our government is doing every day of the year to promote the vision of Nelson Mandela to achieve a just, fair and egalitarian society.
Surely, one of the most pressing priorities for any government in South Africa must be the improvement of the education system and the provision of better education to a far larger range of pupils to ensure that the life chances of all children are not largely determined by how much money their parents can spend on their education, but are rather determined by the talent, hard work and enthusiasm of the children themselves.
After 18 years we are still very far from this ideal and might, in fact, have gone backwards. A child who happens to have a Cabinet Minister, Member of Parliament, City Councillor, or tenderpreneur as a parent or whose parents happen to be relatively wealthy because they had benefited from the apartheid system, has every chance of receiving a relatively good education. But many children in South Africa will never flourish and will never achieve their full potential merely because of an accident of birth.
That is why I was rather surprised to hear that the Western Cape government is considering closing 27 schools in the province. It became even more perplexing to me when I read that Western Cape Education MEC Donald Grant had said at a media briefing that he had drawn up a rough estimate on what the cost savings to the department would be should all the schools be closed and “they were insignificant when one compares that with the (provincial) education department’s R14b budget”.
In a fact sheet, the Western Cape Education Department cited a rather surprising Department of Basic Education statistic that between 2006 and 2010 about 1000 schools were closed across the country. Our education system is in a crisis, yet more than a 1000 schools have been closed across South Africa, a fact that warrants further investigation, it seems to me. Mr Grant said it was not his idea to close the schools and that the national department recommended the closures.
Several reasons have been offered for the possible closure of schools. Some of the schools slated for closure in the Western Cape are situated on private land and the argument is that they need to be closed because government finance regulations prohibited any further investment in the facilities by the department.
Why these regulations could not be changed to facilitate investment in schools on private land, is not explained. Why the common law rules on property rights could not be developed to bring it in line with the spirit, purport and object of the Bill of Rights – which guarantees basic education for all – in order to address concerns about investing in school buildings on private property is also not explained. People, we are never going to solve the problems associated with the provision of education to pupils in deep rural areas, if we do not stop thinking like rule-bound bureaucrats and if we do not begin to think innovatively about problems and how to solve them.
Closing smaller schools, so it is argued, would also save cost in terms of services such as water and electricity. But to what extent such a move would effect access to schooling for especially children living in sparsely populated rural areas is not considered. Sometimes one must incur extra cost to ensure equal treatment of all children as far as access to schooling is concerned. The failure to do so would often discriminate against rural children who might not be able to attend school because they are unable to get to and from the school due to lack of transport or lack of funds to pay for the transport.
Some schools are said to face closure because many of their pupils do not live in the area in which the school is situated. But there might be many reasons why parents send their children to a school in an area in which they are not domiciled. The child may informally stay with a grandparent or another family member who lives close to the school, or the school might be closer to the place of work of the parent and it might be easier for the parent to get the child to the school close to his or her work. The school in the catchment area where the parents live might also be dysfunctional. Closing a school and in effect punishing children for not living in the area in which the school is situated (or living in an area where a school is dysfunctional) seems not to take into account the complexities of people’s lives and their needs as parents and pupils.
Other schools are said to face closure (or have been closed in other provinces) because they were identified as consistently having a high failure rate or a high failure rate in core subjects. While closing such schools will “solve” the immediate problem of the failing school (and is much easier to do than actually turning around the culture in the school and making it succeed), it once again seems to ignore the human element, the needs of parents and pupils and the possible complexities of their lives that led to the children being schooled at that particular school in the first place. Even when schools are therefore closed “for the benefit of the pupils”, it is often done using the cold-hearted logic of a bureaucrat and not focusing on the peculiar and often complex needs of children and their parents who attend that school.
There might well be cases where the only sensible thing to do would be to close a particular school, but surely the assumption must be that this is seldom the right thing to do. Where the National Education Department or Provincial Education Department proposes the closure of a school, the onus should be on them to provide cogent, convincing reasons not merely based on bureaucratic considerations about saving money or about problems with government regulations (which can always be changed). Neither the National Department nor the Western Cape Education Department has really provided cogent reasons, based on the actual needs of the children and their parents, of why these schools have to be closed. (I am not saying such reasons might not exist in individual cases, but if these reasons exist, they have not been properly communicated to the public.)
This, I think, is also what is required by our Constitution. Section 29(1) of the Constitution states that everyone has the right “to a basic education, including adult basic education”, and unlike many of the other social and economic rights in the Bill of Rights, this right is not qualified by the proviso that the state only had to take reasonable steps within its available resources progressively to realise the right. Last year in a judgment in the case of Governing Body of the Juma Musjid Primary School & Others v Essay N.O. and Others the Constitutional Court confirmed that this means that the right to basic education places an immediate obligation on the state to provide such education to all:
But even if this was not so, section 29(1) places a negative obligation on the state not to interfere with the existing enjoyment of the right to education. Where the Education Department proposes the closure of a school, it will have to demonstrate that this closure is not going to make it more difficult for the children at the school that is to be closed to access education. For children attending farm schools, for example, the closure of a school might well infringe on their right to education by making it more difficult if not impossible for them to attend another school that is far less accessible to the child. And where a child attends a school because it is closer to the place of work of the parent, the closure of that school might well infringe on that child’s right to education because it would become more difficult for the parent to get the child to school and will potentially limit that child’s access to schooling.
Has the Western Cape Department of Education considered the individual needs of the children attending the schools it now wishes to close? And did the National Department do likewise when it closed more than a 1000 schools over the past five years? I can’t imagine that they have, suggesting that there might well be a legal basis for challenging these decisions on school closures. In the absence of clear reasons, based on the actual situation and needs of the pupils and tehir parents, the closure of existing schools will be unconstitutional as it will infringe on the right of access to education.
Of course, this is a small matter compared to the larger, clearly catastrophic, failure of our education system to provide all children regardless of their race and financial circumstances with at least a basic quality education, a failure shockingly illustrated by the Limpopo textbook scandal. But news that so many schools have been closed and that more closures are to follow does seem to illustrate – in its small way – the rather cold-hearted and bureaucratic manner in which various spheres of our government deal with a pivotal issue around the improvement of our education system.
Instead of bending over backwards and working feverishly to provide more pupils with better access to higher quality education, our politicians and bureaucrats fold their hands and shrug their shoulders, pointing to technicalities and blaming others to evade responsibility for the improvement of education. Running up against government regulations, they throw their hands in the air and decide to close a school, rather than to do the obvious thing and change the regulation to allow for investment in schools on private land.
How can our cabinet – both collectively and individually in the form of the Minister of Basic Education – justify this state of affairs? Why are we – as parents, as citizens, as individuals with even a smidgen of humanity – allowing this to happen? Why did the SACP at its recent conference not produce a ten point plan for the improvement of our education system over the next five years and why did it not set an ultimatum for the ANC-led government to implement this plan or face a breakup of the alliance? Why did the ANC delegates at its recent policy conference not take a stand on the failures in education by refusing to leave the conference hall or to endorse any of the resolutions until the Minister of Education and other Cabinet Ministers had provided them with concrete plans for the immediate improvement of the education system (or had promised to resign)? Why did Cosatu not organise an indefinite strike to achieve the same goals?
Oh yes, I forgot, most of our leaders send their children to private schools or to the best government schools and are therefore not affected by the failure of so many of our schools. It’s “only” the poor, the very poor they profess to respect and serve, who are suffering.
Source: Constitutionally Speaking
Surely, one of the most pressing priorities for any government in South Africa must be the improvement of the education system and the provision of better education to a far larger range of pupils to ensure that the life chances of all children are not largely determined by how much money their parents can spend on their education, but are rather determined by the talent, hard work and enthusiasm of the children themselves.
After 18 years we are still very far from this ideal and might, in fact, have gone backwards. A child who happens to have a Cabinet Minister, Member of Parliament, City Councillor, or tenderpreneur as a parent or whose parents happen to be relatively wealthy because they had benefited from the apartheid system, has every chance of receiving a relatively good education. But many children in South Africa will never flourish and will never achieve their full potential merely because of an accident of birth.
That is why I was rather surprised to hear that the Western Cape government is considering closing 27 schools in the province. It became even more perplexing to me when I read that Western Cape Education MEC Donald Grant had said at a media briefing that he had drawn up a rough estimate on what the cost savings to the department would be should all the schools be closed and “they were insignificant when one compares that with the (provincial) education department’s R14b budget”.
In a fact sheet, the Western Cape Education Department cited a rather surprising Department of Basic Education statistic that between 2006 and 2010 about 1000 schools were closed across the country. Our education system is in a crisis, yet more than a 1000 schools have been closed across South Africa, a fact that warrants further investigation, it seems to me. Mr Grant said it was not his idea to close the schools and that the national department recommended the closures.
Several reasons have been offered for the possible closure of schools. Some of the schools slated for closure in the Western Cape are situated on private land and the argument is that they need to be closed because government finance regulations prohibited any further investment in the facilities by the department.
Why these regulations could not be changed to facilitate investment in schools on private land, is not explained. Why the common law rules on property rights could not be developed to bring it in line with the spirit, purport and object of the Bill of Rights – which guarantees basic education for all – in order to address concerns about investing in school buildings on private property is also not explained. People, we are never going to solve the problems associated with the provision of education to pupils in deep rural areas, if we do not stop thinking like rule-bound bureaucrats and if we do not begin to think innovatively about problems and how to solve them.
Closing smaller schools, so it is argued, would also save cost in terms of services such as water and electricity. But to what extent such a move would effect access to schooling for especially children living in sparsely populated rural areas is not considered. Sometimes one must incur extra cost to ensure equal treatment of all children as far as access to schooling is concerned. The failure to do so would often discriminate against rural children who might not be able to attend school because they are unable to get to and from the school due to lack of transport or lack of funds to pay for the transport.
Some schools are said to face closure because many of their pupils do not live in the area in which the school is situated. But there might be many reasons why parents send their children to a school in an area in which they are not domiciled. The child may informally stay with a grandparent or another family member who lives close to the school, or the school might be closer to the place of work of the parent and it might be easier for the parent to get the child to the school close to his or her work. The school in the catchment area where the parents live might also be dysfunctional. Closing a school and in effect punishing children for not living in the area in which the school is situated (or living in an area where a school is dysfunctional) seems not to take into account the complexities of people’s lives and their needs as parents and pupils.
Other schools are said to face closure (or have been closed in other provinces) because they were identified as consistently having a high failure rate or a high failure rate in core subjects. While closing such schools will “solve” the immediate problem of the failing school (and is much easier to do than actually turning around the culture in the school and making it succeed), it once again seems to ignore the human element, the needs of parents and pupils and the possible complexities of their lives that led to the children being schooled at that particular school in the first place. Even when schools are therefore closed “for the benefit of the pupils”, it is often done using the cold-hearted logic of a bureaucrat and not focusing on the peculiar and often complex needs of children and their parents who attend that school.
There might well be cases where the only sensible thing to do would be to close a particular school, but surely the assumption must be that this is seldom the right thing to do. Where the National Education Department or Provincial Education Department proposes the closure of a school, the onus should be on them to provide cogent, convincing reasons not merely based on bureaucratic considerations about saving money or about problems with government regulations (which can always be changed). Neither the National Department nor the Western Cape Education Department has really provided cogent reasons, based on the actual needs of the children and their parents, of why these schools have to be closed. (I am not saying such reasons might not exist in individual cases, but if these reasons exist, they have not been properly communicated to the public.)
This, I think, is also what is required by our Constitution. Section 29(1) of the Constitution states that everyone has the right “to a basic education, including adult basic education”, and unlike many of the other social and economic rights in the Bill of Rights, this right is not qualified by the proviso that the state only had to take reasonable steps within its available resources progressively to realise the right. Last year in a judgment in the case of Governing Body of the Juma Musjid Primary School & Others v Essay N.O. and Others the Constitutional Court confirmed that this means that the right to basic education places an immediate obligation on the state to provide such education to all:
Unlike some of the other socio-economic rights, this right is immediately realisable. There is no internal limitation requiring that the right be “progressively realised” within “available resources” subject to “reasonable legislative measures”. The right to a basic education in section 29(1)(a) may be limited only in terms of a law of general application which is “reasonable and justifiable in an open and democratic society based on human dignity, equality and freedom”.
But even if this was not so, section 29(1) places a negative obligation on the state not to interfere with the existing enjoyment of the right to education. Where the Education Department proposes the closure of a school, it will have to demonstrate that this closure is not going to make it more difficult for the children at the school that is to be closed to access education. For children attending farm schools, for example, the closure of a school might well infringe on their right to education by making it more difficult if not impossible for them to attend another school that is far less accessible to the child. And where a child attends a school because it is closer to the place of work of the parent, the closure of that school might well infringe on that child’s right to education because it would become more difficult for the parent to get the child to school and will potentially limit that child’s access to schooling.
Has the Western Cape Department of Education considered the individual needs of the children attending the schools it now wishes to close? And did the National Department do likewise when it closed more than a 1000 schools over the past five years? I can’t imagine that they have, suggesting that there might well be a legal basis for challenging these decisions on school closures. In the absence of clear reasons, based on the actual situation and needs of the pupils and tehir parents, the closure of existing schools will be unconstitutional as it will infringe on the right of access to education.
Of course, this is a small matter compared to the larger, clearly catastrophic, failure of our education system to provide all children regardless of their race and financial circumstances with at least a basic quality education, a failure shockingly illustrated by the Limpopo textbook scandal. But news that so many schools have been closed and that more closures are to follow does seem to illustrate – in its small way – the rather cold-hearted and bureaucratic manner in which various spheres of our government deal with a pivotal issue around the improvement of our education system.
Instead of bending over backwards and working feverishly to provide more pupils with better access to higher quality education, our politicians and bureaucrats fold their hands and shrug their shoulders, pointing to technicalities and blaming others to evade responsibility for the improvement of education. Running up against government regulations, they throw their hands in the air and decide to close a school, rather than to do the obvious thing and change the regulation to allow for investment in schools on private land.
How can our cabinet – both collectively and individually in the form of the Minister of Basic Education – justify this state of affairs? Why are we – as parents, as citizens, as individuals with even a smidgen of humanity – allowing this to happen? Why did the SACP at its recent conference not produce a ten point plan for the improvement of our education system over the next five years and why did it not set an ultimatum for the ANC-led government to implement this plan or face a breakup of the alliance? Why did the ANC delegates at its recent policy conference not take a stand on the failures in education by refusing to leave the conference hall or to endorse any of the resolutions until the Minister of Education and other Cabinet Ministers had provided them with concrete plans for the immediate improvement of the education system (or had promised to resign)? Why did Cosatu not organise an indefinite strike to achieve the same goals?
Oh yes, I forgot, most of our leaders send their children to private schools or to the best government schools and are therefore not affected by the failure of so many of our schools. It’s “only” the poor, the very poor they profess to respect and serve, who are suffering.
Source: Constitutionally Speaking
Egyptian workers mount mass strikes against US-backed junta
Since the beginning of the week, a new wave of strikes and protests has spread over Egypt. Textile workers are on strike in the Nile Delta town of Mahalla al-Kubra, in Alexandria and in the coastal governorate of Daqaliya.
Ceramic workers in the industrial city of Suez, doctors in Marsa Matrouh, university workers in Kafr el-Sheikh, postal workers in Alexandria and Assiut and health workers on the Sinai Peninsula are also on strike. Other protests and strikes have been reported from Cairo, Bani Sueif and Minya.
The renewed strikes and protests reflect growing hostility in the working class to the reactionary policies of the US-backed military junta and its new Islamist figurehead, President Mohamed Mursi.
After Mursi’s inauguration as the first president after the revolutionary ouster of dictator Hosni Mubarak last year, the Egyptian ruling elite’s main goal is to further privatize the Egyptian economy, cut subsidies, and attract more foreign investment.
The Islamists and the junta generals are currently in discussions about forming a new cabinet, tasked with further attacks on the Egyptian masses. Among the names discussed for the new prime minister are three prominent bankers—Farouk El-Oqda, the current governor of the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE), former CBE governor Mahmoud Abul-Oyoun, and former deputy CBE governor Hesham Ramez.
The strikes are the working class’ answer to the continuation of Mubarak-style free-market policies.
On Sunday 25,000 textile workers at the state-owned Mahalla Misr Spinning and Weaving Company in the industrial town of Mahalla al-Kubra went on strike and staged a sit-in at the factory. Workers demand an increase in their share of the company’s annual profits, higher retirement bonuses and the removal of the management.
The workers of Mahalla played a leading role in last year’s revolution, and the Egyptian ruling elite is concerned that the mass strike could spark another revolution. On Monday and Tuesday workers of seven other Nile Delta textile factories went on strike, raising the same demands as Mahalla workers.
Members of the Freedom Justice Party (FJP), the political arm of the MB, reportedly tried to convince the Mahalla workers to end their strike, but were chased away.
The Egyptian daily Al-Masry Al-Youm published a video of the striking Mahalla workers which gives a picture of the militant mood among workers in Egypt.
In the video, a female worker expresses her disillusionment with the Islamist president who only cares about a tiny wealthy elite. “The first thing he does when he gets his hands on the presidency is to forget about us. He’s only thinking about those earning 200,000 or half a million. He doesn’t think about the workers who are sweating blood. Where are our rights? We can’t even afford a crust of bread. Where is our president now? We want the minimum wage. Not one of our demands has been met.”
A male colleague adds: “The revolution didn’t bring anything to the workers of Misr Spinning in Mahalla. Back in 2006, we were getting profit-sharing bonuses of four and a half months. Other people are getting more and we’re getting less. How can they bring in someone like Fouad Abd-al-Alim [the new head of the public sector Holding Company for Textiles and Garment Production]? He was the most corrupt one here. He destroyed the factory in Mahalla and is destroying the rest of the public textile factories. The workers here are making the revolution again from the start. The coming revolution will be a workers’ revolution.”
Threatened by the specter of a renewed revolution, the junta and the Islamists are seeking to violently repress the strike wave.
In Suez, one of the epicenters of the revolution, security forces fired tear gas at hundreds of factory workers of the Cleopatra Ceramics company on Tuesday. The workers stormed government buildings in the port town, demanding the prosecution of the owner of factory Mohamed Abul Enein, a former member of Mubarak’s now-dissolved National Democratic Party (NDP). The workers accuse Enein of not paying wages, illegally firing workers, and being involved in the infamous “Battle of the Camels”—when Mubarak’s thugs attacked protesting workers and youth on Tahrir square.
Military units reportedly entered Suez after the clashes between the workers and police forces, in which at least 15 workers were injured and 6 arrested.
In South Sinai, security forces reportedly fired live ammunition to disperse hundreds of health workers staging a sit-in in front of the office of the undersecretary of the Ministry of Health. The workers demanded higher incentives and protested poor health conditions inside the hospitals in South Sinai and the lack of medicines and equipment.
The regime did not dare to attack the Mahalla textile workers yet, however. It aims to rely on its pseudo-left supporters to bring the situation under control. Egypt’s Minister of Industry and Commerce, Mahmoud Issa, reportedly plans to visit the Mahalla workers on Wednesday. On Tuesday evening, the secretary general of the Gharbiya governorate who went to the factory was not able to calm down the workers and they said they would continue the strike.
Amongst the negotiators are experienced petty-bourgeois elements, such as Kamal al-Fayoumi, who aim to shut down and sell out the strike. These figures try to present themselves as representatives of the workers but their policies are directly opposed to the interests of the working class and play into the hands of the counterrevolution.
Fayoumi is a member of the misnamed pseudo-left Revolutionary Socialists (RS) group, which is opposed to a second revolution against the junta, and a struggle for workers power and socialism. The RS supported Mursi in the presidential elections and claim that the Islamists can be pressured for social reforms.
While Mursi and the junta are violently cracking down on striking workers, the RS claim in their latest statement that “pressure on Mursi and the Muslim Brotherhood is just what will drive their decision in the right direction, the direction of completing the objectives of the revolution and overthrow the rule of the military and purge the state.”
Source: World Socialist Web Site
Ceramic workers in the industrial city of Suez, doctors in Marsa Matrouh, university workers in Kafr el-Sheikh, postal workers in Alexandria and Assiut and health workers on the Sinai Peninsula are also on strike. Other protests and strikes have been reported from Cairo, Bani Sueif and Minya.
The renewed strikes and protests reflect growing hostility in the working class to the reactionary policies of the US-backed military junta and its new Islamist figurehead, President Mohamed Mursi.
After Mursi’s inauguration as the first president after the revolutionary ouster of dictator Hosni Mubarak last year, the Egyptian ruling elite’s main goal is to further privatize the Egyptian economy, cut subsidies, and attract more foreign investment.
The Islamists and the junta generals are currently in discussions about forming a new cabinet, tasked with further attacks on the Egyptian masses. Among the names discussed for the new prime minister are three prominent bankers—Farouk El-Oqda, the current governor of the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE), former CBE governor Mahmoud Abul-Oyoun, and former deputy CBE governor Hesham Ramez.
The strikes are the working class’ answer to the continuation of Mubarak-style free-market policies.
On Sunday 25,000 textile workers at the state-owned Mahalla Misr Spinning and Weaving Company in the industrial town of Mahalla al-Kubra went on strike and staged a sit-in at the factory. Workers demand an increase in their share of the company’s annual profits, higher retirement bonuses and the removal of the management.
The workers of Mahalla played a leading role in last year’s revolution, and the Egyptian ruling elite is concerned that the mass strike could spark another revolution. On Monday and Tuesday workers of seven other Nile Delta textile factories went on strike, raising the same demands as Mahalla workers.
Members of the Freedom Justice Party (FJP), the political arm of the MB, reportedly tried to convince the Mahalla workers to end their strike, but were chased away.
The Egyptian daily Al-Masry Al-Youm published a video of the striking Mahalla workers which gives a picture of the militant mood among workers in Egypt.
In the video, a female worker expresses her disillusionment with the Islamist president who only cares about a tiny wealthy elite. “The first thing he does when he gets his hands on the presidency is to forget about us. He’s only thinking about those earning 200,000 or half a million. He doesn’t think about the workers who are sweating blood. Where are our rights? We can’t even afford a crust of bread. Where is our president now? We want the minimum wage. Not one of our demands has been met.”
A male colleague adds: “The revolution didn’t bring anything to the workers of Misr Spinning in Mahalla. Back in 2006, we were getting profit-sharing bonuses of four and a half months. Other people are getting more and we’re getting less. How can they bring in someone like Fouad Abd-al-Alim [the new head of the public sector Holding Company for Textiles and Garment Production]? He was the most corrupt one here. He destroyed the factory in Mahalla and is destroying the rest of the public textile factories. The workers here are making the revolution again from the start. The coming revolution will be a workers’ revolution.”
Threatened by the specter of a renewed revolution, the junta and the Islamists are seeking to violently repress the strike wave.
In Suez, one of the epicenters of the revolution, security forces fired tear gas at hundreds of factory workers of the Cleopatra Ceramics company on Tuesday. The workers stormed government buildings in the port town, demanding the prosecution of the owner of factory Mohamed Abul Enein, a former member of Mubarak’s now-dissolved National Democratic Party (NDP). The workers accuse Enein of not paying wages, illegally firing workers, and being involved in the infamous “Battle of the Camels”—when Mubarak’s thugs attacked protesting workers and youth on Tahrir square.
Military units reportedly entered Suez after the clashes between the workers and police forces, in which at least 15 workers were injured and 6 arrested.
In South Sinai, security forces reportedly fired live ammunition to disperse hundreds of health workers staging a sit-in in front of the office of the undersecretary of the Ministry of Health. The workers demanded higher incentives and protested poor health conditions inside the hospitals in South Sinai and the lack of medicines and equipment.
The regime did not dare to attack the Mahalla textile workers yet, however. It aims to rely on its pseudo-left supporters to bring the situation under control. Egypt’s Minister of Industry and Commerce, Mahmoud Issa, reportedly plans to visit the Mahalla workers on Wednesday. On Tuesday evening, the secretary general of the Gharbiya governorate who went to the factory was not able to calm down the workers and they said they would continue the strike.
Amongst the negotiators are experienced petty-bourgeois elements, such as Kamal al-Fayoumi, who aim to shut down and sell out the strike. These figures try to present themselves as representatives of the workers but their policies are directly opposed to the interests of the working class and play into the hands of the counterrevolution.
Fayoumi is a member of the misnamed pseudo-left Revolutionary Socialists (RS) group, which is opposed to a second revolution against the junta, and a struggle for workers power and socialism. The RS supported Mursi in the presidential elections and claim that the Islamists can be pressured for social reforms.
While Mursi and the junta are violently cracking down on striking workers, the RS claim in their latest statement that “pressure on Mursi and the Muslim Brotherhood is just what will drive their decision in the right direction, the direction of completing the objectives of the revolution and overthrow the rule of the military and purge the state.”
Source: World Socialist Web Site
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Probe into Absa takeover needed
President Jacob Zuma must appoint a commission of inquiry into Barclays bank's takeover of Absa Group [JSE:ASA] in 2005 and its link to the arms deal, activist and author Terry Crawford-Browne said on Monday.
"As a former international banker, I informed both the British and South African governments as early as October 1999 that the Barclays bank loan agreements for the (British defence company) BAE arms deal contracts would be fraudulent," he said in a statement.
"I also repeatedly pleaded with the former minister of finance Trevor Manuel not to sign those agreements."
He said the investigation should consider the implications of foreign control over South Africa’s banking system, including what pressure was applied to Manuel to approve the "ill-considered" takeover of Absa.
"The reality is that Absa, to the detriment of the South African public, has been milked by Barclays.
"Although Absa’s assets amount to only 4% of the total, Absa is reported to contribute 20% to total Barclays’ group revenue," he said.
"Surveys repeatedly find Absa to be the most expensive of South African banks. The former governor of the SA Reserve Bank noted as early as 2007 that he failed to see any benefits of Barclays' management at Absa."
Absa declined to comment on Crawford-Browne's claims, and presidential spokesperson Mac Maharaj could not be reached for comment.
Crawford-Browne said he had made a submission to the Seriti Commission - an arms deal probe - to request an investigation of perjury charges against Manuel and Maria Ramos in connection with the arms deal.
"Ms Ramos was then director general of the Treasury, and under oath, affirmed that the 'agreements... are self-standing loan agreements with binding force and not dependent on any other agreement entered into by government.'
"This lie was exposed by the Barclays bank loan agreements," he alleged.
He said he had previously submitted affidavits that detailed how BAE paid bribes of more than R1.5bn to secure its arms deal contracts, to whom the bribes were paid and to which bank accounts the bribes were credited.
The documents also revealed the complicity in money laundering of the British government and both international and South African banks.
He claimed that when a court awarded him with the discovery of the international offer's negotiating team and financial working group papers for the arms deal, Manuel and Ramos refused to comply.
"The court had previously rejected their arguments that it 'was not in the national interest to reveal how the government conducts its international financial arrangements'," he said.
"This is pertinent given enthusiastic approval by the minister in 2005 when Barclays Bank took over Absa with a 55.5% shareholding. What threats did Barclays Bank make?" he asked.
He said Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale was a major shareholder in Absa and a former director.
Ramos was appointed chief executive of Absa in 2009.
"Clear conflicts of interest are evident," Crawford-Brown said.
Source: News 24
"As a former international banker, I informed both the British and South African governments as early as October 1999 that the Barclays bank loan agreements for the (British defence company) BAE arms deal contracts would be fraudulent," he said in a statement.
"I also repeatedly pleaded with the former minister of finance Trevor Manuel not to sign those agreements."
He said the investigation should consider the implications of foreign control over South Africa’s banking system, including what pressure was applied to Manuel to approve the "ill-considered" takeover of Absa.
"The reality is that Absa, to the detriment of the South African public, has been milked by Barclays.
"Although Absa’s assets amount to only 4% of the total, Absa is reported to contribute 20% to total Barclays’ group revenue," he said.
"Surveys repeatedly find Absa to be the most expensive of South African banks. The former governor of the SA Reserve Bank noted as early as 2007 that he failed to see any benefits of Barclays' management at Absa."
Absa declined to comment on Crawford-Browne's claims, and presidential spokesperson Mac Maharaj could not be reached for comment.
Crawford-Browne said he had made a submission to the Seriti Commission - an arms deal probe - to request an investigation of perjury charges against Manuel and Maria Ramos in connection with the arms deal.
"Ms Ramos was then director general of the Treasury, and under oath, affirmed that the 'agreements... are self-standing loan agreements with binding force and not dependent on any other agreement entered into by government.'
"This lie was exposed by the Barclays bank loan agreements," he alleged.
He said he had previously submitted affidavits that detailed how BAE paid bribes of more than R1.5bn to secure its arms deal contracts, to whom the bribes were paid and to which bank accounts the bribes were credited.
The documents also revealed the complicity in money laundering of the British government and both international and South African banks.
He claimed that when a court awarded him with the discovery of the international offer's negotiating team and financial working group papers for the arms deal, Manuel and Ramos refused to comply.
"The court had previously rejected their arguments that it 'was not in the national interest to reveal how the government conducts its international financial arrangements'," he said.
"This is pertinent given enthusiastic approval by the minister in 2005 when Barclays Bank took over Absa with a 55.5% shareholding. What threats did Barclays Bank make?" he asked.
He said Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale was a major shareholder in Absa and a former director.
Ramos was appointed chief executive of Absa in 2009.
"Clear conflicts of interest are evident," Crawford-Brown said.
Source: News 24
Accused says probe is tainted
Convicted fraudster Yusuf Omarjee said an organised crime unit police officer was on a “witch-hunt” and was intent on arresting him on trumped-up charges. Omarjee, the owner of Zungeza Trading, a container storage company, made the claims in an application he brought in the Durban High Court against the police to have Lieutenant Muntomuhle Mbhele removed as the investigating officer in a theft case. He had opened the theft case earlier this year against two of his former employees, Terrence Pillay and his sister, Laura Pillay, for allegedly stealing more than 100 shipping containers worth R2.5 million. He said a Maydon Wharf police detective had initially investigated the case, but it had been taken over by Mbhele, who had “insisted” on handling the case.
Mbhele had been the investigating officer in a fraud case in which Omarjee had been charged in 2008. Omarjee, who was charged with defrauding banks of R39m, pleaded guilty in the Durban Regional Court in December 2010 to 160 counts of fraud and two counts of corruption. He was given an effective suspended sentence and a R2.5m fine.
Omarjee said the previous investigating office had been carrying out a thorough investigation, and had recovered some of the containers and arrested Laura Pillay, but this changed when Mbhele took over the case.
“Since the third respondent (Mbhele) took over, the applicant has not received the level of co-operation and diligence that it is entitled to. Mbhele has not interviewed me and he took over a month to arrest the second accused, Terrence Pillay.”
He added that, as a result of the previous fraud case against him, he and Mbhele had a “bitter and strained relationship”, and Mbhele was disappointed that he had not been sent to jail.
Omarjee claimed that his business was suffering financially as Mbhele had failed to take steps to find the missing containers or move forward with the investigation.
“The third respondent (Mbhele) cannot investigate this case as his judgement is completely tainted by his acrimony and hatred for me. He is intent on building a case against me rather than bringing the Pillays to book. He is also investigating other charges against me and it is therefore improper for him to handle the theft case.”
In a replying affidavit, Mbhele denied that he was carrying out an improper investigation or that he had been hostile towards Omarjee. He said he had taken over the theft case as it was related to other cases he was investigating against Omarjee.
“I deny that I insisted on handling the case. I took over after a decision was made by my commander as it was linked to my other investigation against Omarjee. I further deny that I have ulterior motives to falsely implicate Omarjee. I was not vindictive during the previous investigation. If I am removed, it will cause a delay in the case.”
Keith Flack, the acting provincial commander overseeing the organised crime unit, said it would be “prejudicial to the interests of justice” to have Mbhele removed.
“Omarjee is trying to immunise himself against further investigations and the imposition of the sentence that is currently suspended. A proper investigation is being carried out.”
The case was adjourned to October.
Source: IoL
Mbhele had been the investigating officer in a fraud case in which Omarjee had been charged in 2008. Omarjee, who was charged with defrauding banks of R39m, pleaded guilty in the Durban Regional Court in December 2010 to 160 counts of fraud and two counts of corruption. He was given an effective suspended sentence and a R2.5m fine.
Omarjee said the previous investigating office had been carrying out a thorough investigation, and had recovered some of the containers and arrested Laura Pillay, but this changed when Mbhele took over the case.
“Since the third respondent (Mbhele) took over, the applicant has not received the level of co-operation and diligence that it is entitled to. Mbhele has not interviewed me and he took over a month to arrest the second accused, Terrence Pillay.”
He added that, as a result of the previous fraud case against him, he and Mbhele had a “bitter and strained relationship”, and Mbhele was disappointed that he had not been sent to jail.
Omarjee claimed that his business was suffering financially as Mbhele had failed to take steps to find the missing containers or move forward with the investigation.
“The third respondent (Mbhele) cannot investigate this case as his judgement is completely tainted by his acrimony and hatred for me. He is intent on building a case against me rather than bringing the Pillays to book. He is also investigating other charges against me and it is therefore improper for him to handle the theft case.”
In a replying affidavit, Mbhele denied that he was carrying out an improper investigation or that he had been hostile towards Omarjee. He said he had taken over the theft case as it was related to other cases he was investigating against Omarjee.
“I deny that I insisted on handling the case. I took over after a decision was made by my commander as it was linked to my other investigation against Omarjee. I further deny that I have ulterior motives to falsely implicate Omarjee. I was not vindictive during the previous investigation. If I am removed, it will cause a delay in the case.”
Keith Flack, the acting provincial commander overseeing the organised crime unit, said it would be “prejudicial to the interests of justice” to have Mbhele removed.
“Omarjee is trying to immunise himself against further investigations and the imposition of the sentence that is currently suspended. A proper investigation is being carried out.”
The case was adjourned to October.
Source: IoL
Sunday, July 15, 2012
SADC concerned by Jean Ping's statement
Statement by the Honourable Phandu TC Skelemani, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation in Botswana, on Dr Jean Ping's response to an article in The Sunday Times, delivered on behalf of Southern African Development Community (SADC)
12 Jul 2012
1. Thank you, Mr President, for giving me this opportunity.
2. I would like to raise a matter of grave concern to my delegation and the Southern Africa region. We were alarmed to note that on Tuesday 10 July this week, a press statement was issued by Dr. Jean Ping, in his capacity as the Chairperson of the African Union (AU) Commission, in response to an article published in The Sunday Times of South Africa, on 8 July 2012 titled: "At Last, SA may get its woman into AU post,"
3. Our main concern, Chairperson, is that in responding to a media article of a personal nature, the AU Chairperson chose to use the AU resources as clearly indicated by the use of the official letterhead and the official website to distribute his statement to media houses. By so doing, this makes his response an official statement of the African Union. Is this part of his mandate as the Chairperson of our organisation? Certainly not.
4. In our view, the nature of this issue is about a campaign for the post of AU Chairperson, which is a personal matter, and so should have been addressed using personal resources as is normal practice. We are therefore, shocked and appalled by the blatant abuse of his office and resources of the AU Commission.
5. Furthermore, Dr. Ping's response when carefully studied is merely a campaign statement, and I wish to quote some of his expressions to demonstrate this point. He says: "May I seize this opportunity to reiterate categorically and unequivocally that I am running for re-election as chairperson of the African Union Commission. I am in the race... and would appreciate the opportunity to finish the work we have been doing in the last four years. I am still in this race and gratefully look forward to the wholesome support of the majority of the leaders of the AU Member States." Close quote.
6. We are also seriously concerned that the content and tone of Dr. Ping's statement amounts to a direct attack on a Member State of the African Union by the Chairperson of this esteemed organisation.
7. Even more disturbing, is when a Member State is quoted on the position undertaken when collective decisions were made at the AU or the United Nations (UN). By divulging such information, this has a potential of sowing seeds of animosity and division among AU Member States.
8. It is our considered view, Chairperson, that this conduct is in violation of the provisions and spirit of the Statutes of the AU Commission, in particular:
a. Article 4(1) under Obligations in the Statutes of the Commission, which stipulate that Members of the Commission "shall refrain from any action which may reflect adversely on their position as international officials responsible only to the Union."
b. Similarly, the same Statutes stipulate, under the Functions, that the Commission shall: "represent the Union and defend its interests under the guidance of and as mandated by the Assembly and the Executive Council - Article 2(a); and "coordinate and monitor the implementation of the decisions of the other organs of the Union in close collaboration with the PRC and report regularly to the Executive Council" - Article 2(g).
9. In this regard, the conduct by the Chairperson of the AU, namely abuse of AU resources, attack on and divulging information of a Member State is unprecedented, and can bring disrepute to the integrity of the African Union. This therefore calls for an apology on his part, and retraction of the statement through the same medium used.
Statement issued by Department of International Relations and Cooperation, July 12 2012
12 Jul 2012
1. Thank you, Mr President, for giving me this opportunity.
2. I would like to raise a matter of grave concern to my delegation and the Southern Africa region. We were alarmed to note that on Tuesday 10 July this week, a press statement was issued by Dr. Jean Ping, in his capacity as the Chairperson of the African Union (AU) Commission, in response to an article published in The Sunday Times of South Africa, on 8 July 2012 titled: "At Last, SA may get its woman into AU post,"
3. Our main concern, Chairperson, is that in responding to a media article of a personal nature, the AU Chairperson chose to use the AU resources as clearly indicated by the use of the official letterhead and the official website to distribute his statement to media houses. By so doing, this makes his response an official statement of the African Union. Is this part of his mandate as the Chairperson of our organisation? Certainly not.
4. In our view, the nature of this issue is about a campaign for the post of AU Chairperson, which is a personal matter, and so should have been addressed using personal resources as is normal practice. We are therefore, shocked and appalled by the blatant abuse of his office and resources of the AU Commission.
5. Furthermore, Dr. Ping's response when carefully studied is merely a campaign statement, and I wish to quote some of his expressions to demonstrate this point. He says: "May I seize this opportunity to reiterate categorically and unequivocally that I am running for re-election as chairperson of the African Union Commission. I am in the race... and would appreciate the opportunity to finish the work we have been doing in the last four years. I am still in this race and gratefully look forward to the wholesome support of the majority of the leaders of the AU Member States." Close quote.
6. We are also seriously concerned that the content and tone of Dr. Ping's statement amounts to a direct attack on a Member State of the African Union by the Chairperson of this esteemed organisation.
7. Even more disturbing, is when a Member State is quoted on the position undertaken when collective decisions were made at the AU or the United Nations (UN). By divulging such information, this has a potential of sowing seeds of animosity and division among AU Member States.
8. It is our considered view, Chairperson, that this conduct is in violation of the provisions and spirit of the Statutes of the AU Commission, in particular:
a. Article 4(1) under Obligations in the Statutes of the Commission, which stipulate that Members of the Commission "shall refrain from any action which may reflect adversely on their position as international officials responsible only to the Union."
b. Similarly, the same Statutes stipulate, under the Functions, that the Commission shall: "represent the Union and defend its interests under the guidance of and as mandated by the Assembly and the Executive Council - Article 2(a); and "coordinate and monitor the implementation of the decisions of the other organs of the Union in close collaboration with the PRC and report regularly to the Executive Council" - Article 2(g).
9. In this regard, the conduct by the Chairperson of the AU, namely abuse of AU resources, attack on and divulging information of a Member State is unprecedented, and can bring disrepute to the integrity of the African Union. This therefore calls for an apology on his part, and retraction of the statement through the same medium used.
Statement issued by Department of International Relations and Cooperation, July 12 2012
Friday, July 13, 2012
Foreclosures rise after bank settlement
Foreclosure notifications increased for the second consecutive month in June, as lenders rushed to foreclose homes in the wake of the Obama administration's settlement with the largest banks on mortgage fraud.
RealtyTrac, the online foreclosure marketplace, said that 311,010 properties started foreclosure during the second quarter of the year, a 9 percent increase from the previous quarter and a 6 percent increase from the second quarter of 2011. The company said in its 2012 midyear report that this was the first year-over-year increase in quarterly foreclosure starts since the fourth quarter of 2009.
Daren Blomquist, Vice President of Realtytrac, told the WSWS in a telephone interview that the growth in foreclosure starts is largely attributed to the bank fraud settlement. “We expected that the settlement to loosen up the logjam of delayed foreclosures; that's what happened in April as it was finalized and in May and June we saw two months of increasing starts.”
“The settlement involves the nation’s five biggest lenders; but others are looking at it as something to live by,” he added. “It is freeing up lenders to move forward more confidently; as long as they abide by those guidelines they won’t be accused of improperly foreclosing.”
In the fall of 2010 it emerged that the largest banks were engaged in a practice known as “robo-signing,” in which employees would fraudulently claim to have seen foreclosure documents in order to speed along foreclosures with missing paperwork.
This prompted a coordinated investigation by the 50 state attorney generals into the practice. In January 2012, the Obama administration worked out a settlement with the five biggest banks that put an end to the states’ investigations in exchange for a pitiful cash settlement.
Under the terms of the deal, 750,000 foreclosed homeowners might receive a check for $1,500 to $2,000, if they can show that they were improperly evicted.
Banks started foreclosures on 12 percent of delinquent loans in June, the highest level since early 2009, according to separate data from Fitch ratings.
California, which was the center of the real estate bubble and subsequent collapse, saw the biggest increase in foreclosure starts, which increased 18 percent over the previous year, according to Realtytrac. This boosted California’s foreclosure rate to the highest in the nation.
The midyear report from Realtytrac report showed that one in 126 housing units had at least one foreclosure filing in the first six months of the year.
May was the first time in 28 months that there was a year-over-year increase in foreclosure starts, and June continued the trend. Some 109,999 properties started the foreclosure process in May. That was up 12 percent from the previous month and 16 percent from May of 2011. This was the highest number of foreclosure starts since October 2011.
In May, New Jersey had a 64 percent increase in foreclosure activity. Indiana had a 45 percent increase, and Pennsylvania had a 32 percent increase compared to the previous six months.
Blomquist said that the wave of delayed foreclosures would have a negative effect on the housing market: “In the short term it will continue to weigh down housing prices as these properties are listed.”
The continuing impact of home foreclosures was amply demonstrated when the city of San Bernardino, California, filed for bankruptcy Tuesday, becoming the second-largest US city to do so. San Bernardino has been devastated by the collapse of the housing bubble, and has consistently had among the highest foreclosure rates in the country.
The city had 2,527 properties in foreclosure this month, amounting to 3.5 percent of all housing units, according to Realtytrac. This is over triple the national average of 1.02 percent.
Source: World Socialist Web Site
RealtyTrac, the online foreclosure marketplace, said that 311,010 properties started foreclosure during the second quarter of the year, a 9 percent increase from the previous quarter and a 6 percent increase from the second quarter of 2011. The company said in its 2012 midyear report that this was the first year-over-year increase in quarterly foreclosure starts since the fourth quarter of 2009.
Daren Blomquist, Vice President of Realtytrac, told the WSWS in a telephone interview that the growth in foreclosure starts is largely attributed to the bank fraud settlement. “We expected that the settlement to loosen up the logjam of delayed foreclosures; that's what happened in April as it was finalized and in May and June we saw two months of increasing starts.”
“The settlement involves the nation’s five biggest lenders; but others are looking at it as something to live by,” he added. “It is freeing up lenders to move forward more confidently; as long as they abide by those guidelines they won’t be accused of improperly foreclosing.”
In the fall of 2010 it emerged that the largest banks were engaged in a practice known as “robo-signing,” in which employees would fraudulently claim to have seen foreclosure documents in order to speed along foreclosures with missing paperwork.
This prompted a coordinated investigation by the 50 state attorney generals into the practice. In January 2012, the Obama administration worked out a settlement with the five biggest banks that put an end to the states’ investigations in exchange for a pitiful cash settlement.
Under the terms of the deal, 750,000 foreclosed homeowners might receive a check for $1,500 to $2,000, if they can show that they were improperly evicted.
Banks started foreclosures on 12 percent of delinquent loans in June, the highest level since early 2009, according to separate data from Fitch ratings.
California, which was the center of the real estate bubble and subsequent collapse, saw the biggest increase in foreclosure starts, which increased 18 percent over the previous year, according to Realtytrac. This boosted California’s foreclosure rate to the highest in the nation.
The midyear report from Realtytrac report showed that one in 126 housing units had at least one foreclosure filing in the first six months of the year.
May was the first time in 28 months that there was a year-over-year increase in foreclosure starts, and June continued the trend. Some 109,999 properties started the foreclosure process in May. That was up 12 percent from the previous month and 16 percent from May of 2011. This was the highest number of foreclosure starts since October 2011.
In May, New Jersey had a 64 percent increase in foreclosure activity. Indiana had a 45 percent increase, and Pennsylvania had a 32 percent increase compared to the previous six months.
Blomquist said that the wave of delayed foreclosures would have a negative effect on the housing market: “In the short term it will continue to weigh down housing prices as these properties are listed.”
The continuing impact of home foreclosures was amply demonstrated when the city of San Bernardino, California, filed for bankruptcy Tuesday, becoming the second-largest US city to do so. San Bernardino has been devastated by the collapse of the housing bubble, and has consistently had among the highest foreclosure rates in the country.
The city had 2,527 properties in foreclosure this month, amounting to 3.5 percent of all housing units, according to Realtytrac. This is over triple the national average of 1.02 percent.
Source: World Socialist Web Site
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Exodus 1947
After World War II, a group of private American citizens banded together in a clandestine effort to transport Holocaust survivors to Palestine.
On July 11, 1947, in the port of Sête, France, 4,500 Jewish refugees were crammed into the hull of a decrepit steamship, later named Exodus 1947.
A British blockade intercepted Exodus 1947 in international waters off the coast of Palestine. The tense standoff culminated in a direct attack by military personnel against the unarmed civilians on the Exodus 1947. This highly publicized international incident heavily influenced the United Nations resolution authorizing the partitioning of Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states. Thus, the Exodus 1947 voyage acted as a catalyst in forming a new nation.
Source: Exodus 1947
On July 11, 1947, in the port of Sête, France, 4,500 Jewish refugees were crammed into the hull of a decrepit steamship, later named Exodus 1947.
A British blockade intercepted Exodus 1947 in international waters off the coast of Palestine. The tense standoff culminated in a direct attack by military personnel against the unarmed civilians on the Exodus 1947. This highly publicized international incident heavily influenced the United Nations resolution authorizing the partitioning of Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states. Thus, the Exodus 1947 voyage acted as a catalyst in forming a new nation.
Source: Exodus 1947
Nasty, brutish and short
What can ordinary citizens do when the state – at either national, provincial or local government level – fails to fulfil its most basic obligations towards citizens to create the conditions that make it possible for them to live meaningful lives and to flourish? In developing his concept that a modern state is based on social contract between the governed and those who govern, Thomas Hobbes famously wrote that life in a state of nature is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”.
In such a state of nature, Hobbes argued, people fear death, and lack access to both the basic conditions that make a meaningful life possible, and the hope of being able to work to obtain a better life for themselves. In order to avoid this perilous state of affairs, people accede to a social contract and establish a civil society. According to Hobbes, society is a population beneath a sovereign authority (the state), to whom all individuals in that society cede some rights for the sake of protection. Any abuses of power by this authority are to be accepted as the price of peace.
In today’s human rights dominated world, the idea that we should accept abuses of power by those in authority merely because they create the basic conditions within which a meaningful life becomes possible, has been entirely discredited. But the fiction that we enter into a social contract with those in authority by ceding some of our freedom to them in exchange for the provision of basic services, still holds sway. When the state then reneges on its part of the bargain and fails to provide even the most basic minimum services to citizens, the mythical social contract breaks down completely.
This seems to have happened in the Gert Sibande municipality in Mpumalanga, where the 17000 citizens of Carolina seem not to have had access to sufficiently clean water since January (although this is being disputed by the officials and politicians) when the dam that supplies water to Carolina was polluted with acid mine water.
In response to this complete failure by the municipality to secure the provision of clean water, some residents of Carolina – with the assistance of Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) and the Legal Resources Centre (LRC) – approached the North Gauteng High Court. Yesterday judge Moses Mavundla gave the acting executive mayor of the Gert Sibande municipality, Tunu Agnes Mnisi, and municipal manager DV Ngcobo, 72 hours to provide the 17000 citizens of Carolina, in Mpumalanga, with potable water.
The municipality had placed water tanks around town after disaster struck, but according to residents from early March 2012, until beginning of May 2012, the system of providing potable water through the tanks proved inadequate. Sometimes some of the tanks were not refilled, some remained empty. The tanks were accessed on “first come first served” basis. The end result was that the water supply in general was inadequate. Some of the residents have to walk long distances to access the potable water from the tanks.
Section 27 of the Constitution states that “[e]veryone has the right to have access to … sufficient food and water” and places a positive duty on the state to take reasonable legislative and other measures, within its available resources, to achieve the progressive realisation” of this right. The right to water is further amplified in the Water Services Act which states that every water services authority has a duty to all consumers or potential consumers in its area of jurisdiction to progressively ensure efficient, affordable, economical and sustainable access to water services. The Act also states that this duty is subject to, inter alia, the availability of resources and the need to regulate access to water services in an equitable way.
Where access to clean water is not provided because of a failure on the part of the municipality to take reasonable steps to ensure continued access to clean water, the right of access to water as protected in section 27 of the Act, read with the provisions of the Water Services Act, is being denied to citizens.
Of course, the crisis was originally caused by mines who failed to take steps to prevent the pollution of the dam with acid mine water. In terms of legislation they can be held financially liable for the damage they caused. But the mines are not constitutionally and legally obliged to provide the residents of Carolina with clean drinking water. That duty falls squarely on the municipality.
It was therefore disappointing to read comments by Water and Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa that the court action brought by the residents provides evidence of a war against the state. “The mines were not cited in the court action.… You know, there is a war against the state,” said Ms Molewa at a Pretoria media briefing on Judge Mavundla’s ruling. The judge made no order against the Department of Water Affairs.
No Minister, there is no war against the state. Where the state fails to provide even the most basic services to citizens due to incompetence, laziness, arrogance, corruption or nepotism and in complete disregard of the basic needs of citizens, those citizens have a right and a duty to approach a court to try and get the relevant municipality to do what it is legally required to do. When the citizens do this and when the court then orders the municipality to do what it is legally required to do, it is not at war with the state but is in fact correcting the most basic breach of the social contract between the state and its citizens, saving the state from complete collapse.
Besides, as LRC attorney Naseema Fakir explained, although the LRC and the LHR had considered adding the mines to the action, it was felt that it was important to get water to Carolina’s residents as soon as possible. If the mines had been added as respondents, the application for an urgent court order would not have been granted. This is because the mines are not the ones who are constitutionally and legally obliged to provide citizens with clean water.
The Minister’s attitude is strange and troubling indeed. Instead of apologising to the citizens of Carolina for the criminal negligence of the municipality, she acts as if it is treasonous for citizens to have their most basic rights enforced through the courts. Her comments suggest that she believes that it is not legitimate for the state to be held accountable and to be ordered to take the most basic steps to provide citizens with clean water, without which life itself is not possible.
What is the use of us paying the salaries of the mayor of Gert Sibande municipality (and of the Minister for that matter), when they are not doing their jobs and not protecting us from the chaos of a nasty, brutish and short life? Maybe we should stop paying the Minister’s salary and those of her bodyguards for six months so that she can see how it feels to be treated like dirt.
No Minister, the war, if there is one, is being waged against citizens by tardy and incompetent government officials. As citizens in a constitutional democracy we have a right to approach the court in order to force the government to do its job and if we do we are not waging war against our government – just trying to get it to do what we pay it to do.
Source: Constitutionally Speaking
In such a state of nature, Hobbes argued, people fear death, and lack access to both the basic conditions that make a meaningful life possible, and the hope of being able to work to obtain a better life for themselves. In order to avoid this perilous state of affairs, people accede to a social contract and establish a civil society. According to Hobbes, society is a population beneath a sovereign authority (the state), to whom all individuals in that society cede some rights for the sake of protection. Any abuses of power by this authority are to be accepted as the price of peace.
In today’s human rights dominated world, the idea that we should accept abuses of power by those in authority merely because they create the basic conditions within which a meaningful life becomes possible, has been entirely discredited. But the fiction that we enter into a social contract with those in authority by ceding some of our freedom to them in exchange for the provision of basic services, still holds sway. When the state then reneges on its part of the bargain and fails to provide even the most basic minimum services to citizens, the mythical social contract breaks down completely.
This seems to have happened in the Gert Sibande municipality in Mpumalanga, where the 17000 citizens of Carolina seem not to have had access to sufficiently clean water since January (although this is being disputed by the officials and politicians) when the dam that supplies water to Carolina was polluted with acid mine water.
In response to this complete failure by the municipality to secure the provision of clean water, some residents of Carolina – with the assistance of Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) and the Legal Resources Centre (LRC) – approached the North Gauteng High Court. Yesterday judge Moses Mavundla gave the acting executive mayor of the Gert Sibande municipality, Tunu Agnes Mnisi, and municipal manager DV Ngcobo, 72 hours to provide the 17000 citizens of Carolina, in Mpumalanga, with potable water.
The municipality had placed water tanks around town after disaster struck, but according to residents from early March 2012, until beginning of May 2012, the system of providing potable water through the tanks proved inadequate. Sometimes some of the tanks were not refilled, some remained empty. The tanks were accessed on “first come first served” basis. The end result was that the water supply in general was inadequate. Some of the residents have to walk long distances to access the potable water from the tanks.
Section 27 of the Constitution states that “[e]veryone has the right to have access to … sufficient food and water” and places a positive duty on the state to take reasonable legislative and other measures, within its available resources, to achieve the progressive realisation” of this right. The right to water is further amplified in the Water Services Act which states that every water services authority has a duty to all consumers or potential consumers in its area of jurisdiction to progressively ensure efficient, affordable, economical and sustainable access to water services. The Act also states that this duty is subject to, inter alia, the availability of resources and the need to regulate access to water services in an equitable way.
Where access to clean water is not provided because of a failure on the part of the municipality to take reasonable steps to ensure continued access to clean water, the right of access to water as protected in section 27 of the Act, read with the provisions of the Water Services Act, is being denied to citizens.
Of course, the crisis was originally caused by mines who failed to take steps to prevent the pollution of the dam with acid mine water. In terms of legislation they can be held financially liable for the damage they caused. But the mines are not constitutionally and legally obliged to provide the residents of Carolina with clean drinking water. That duty falls squarely on the municipality.
It was therefore disappointing to read comments by Water and Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa that the court action brought by the residents provides evidence of a war against the state. “The mines were not cited in the court action.… You know, there is a war against the state,” said Ms Molewa at a Pretoria media briefing on Judge Mavundla’s ruling. The judge made no order against the Department of Water Affairs.
No Minister, there is no war against the state. Where the state fails to provide even the most basic services to citizens due to incompetence, laziness, arrogance, corruption or nepotism and in complete disregard of the basic needs of citizens, those citizens have a right and a duty to approach a court to try and get the relevant municipality to do what it is legally required to do. When the citizens do this and when the court then orders the municipality to do what it is legally required to do, it is not at war with the state but is in fact correcting the most basic breach of the social contract between the state and its citizens, saving the state from complete collapse.
Besides, as LRC attorney Naseema Fakir explained, although the LRC and the LHR had considered adding the mines to the action, it was felt that it was important to get water to Carolina’s residents as soon as possible. If the mines had been added as respondents, the application for an urgent court order would not have been granted. This is because the mines are not the ones who are constitutionally and legally obliged to provide citizens with clean water.
The Minister’s attitude is strange and troubling indeed. Instead of apologising to the citizens of Carolina for the criminal negligence of the municipality, she acts as if it is treasonous for citizens to have their most basic rights enforced through the courts. Her comments suggest that she believes that it is not legitimate for the state to be held accountable and to be ordered to take the most basic steps to provide citizens with clean water, without which life itself is not possible.
What is the use of us paying the salaries of the mayor of Gert Sibande municipality (and of the Minister for that matter), when they are not doing their jobs and not protecting us from the chaos of a nasty, brutish and short life? Maybe we should stop paying the Minister’s salary and those of her bodyguards for six months so that she can see how it feels to be treated like dirt.
No Minister, the war, if there is one, is being waged against citizens by tardy and incompetent government officials. As citizens in a constitutional democracy we have a right to approach the court in order to force the government to do its job and if we do we are not waging war against our government – just trying to get it to do what we pay it to do.
Source: Constitutionally Speaking
Establishing the Magaliesberg Biosphere Area
Finland supports the Magaliesberg Biosphere Area which aims at sustainably balanced relationship between people and the environment. The initiative took a step forward in early June when the North West Department of Economic Development, Environment, Conservation and Tourism organised a launching ceremony.
For over a decade Finland has been part of a co-operation scheme between Finnish and South African environmental administrations. The latest, still on-going, mutual effort has been the Support to Magaliesberg Biosphere Initiative. The Initiative has been supported through an Institutional Cooperation Instrument (ICI) project financed by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland.
The cooperation is based on exchange of experiences and knowledge between the experts of the Finnish Environment Institute, the Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment for Central Finland and the Gauteng and North West Province administrations in South Africa. The project has aimed at creating a new biosphere reserve in the Magaliesberg mountain area situated in the two provinces. There are already six existing biospheres in South Africa and two in Finland. The establishment process of Lake Päijänne-Vesijärvi biosphere in Finland has also benefited from the ICI-project.
Biosphere reserves are areas internationally recognised within the framework of the Man and the Biosphere (MAB) programme of the UNESCO. It is an innovative and sustainable approach to managing land and water resources across landscapes made up of one or more bioregions. Biospheres aim at improving livelihoods, enhancing social, economic and cultural conditions, and contributing towards environmental sustainability through means of consolidated land-use guidance and environmentally sound demonstration projects.
Varied Land-Use Forms in the Unique Mountain Area
The Magaliesberg mountain area is situated about 100 km to the north-west of the City of Johannesburg. It has a rich history and biodiversity that forms an important part of the natural and cultural heritage of South Africa. The habitat variety supports more than 130 tree species, 90 mammal species, 80 reptile and amphibian species, and over 450 bird species. The Magaliesberg Mountain along with the Cradle of the Humankind, an area where evidence of the beginning of human race has been traced at, will form the protected core area of the Biosphere.
Many human activities are increasing in the region. Increasing pressures from urbanisation, industrialisation, mining and resulting pollution are major threats to the fragile nature of Magaliesberg.
The zoning of the biosphere defines the allowed and prioritised human activities within the biosphere. A buffer zone usually surrounds the protected core area. In the case of Magaliesberg, voluntary conservancies form the buffer where environmental education, recreation and ecotourism are main activities. The transition zones are areas in which human activities may affect the core and buffer zones and are therefore collaboratively and carefully managed by the various stakeholders to ensure development that is environmentally, socially and economically sustainable.
Constructive Cooperation
The Magaliesberg Biosphere Initiative took a significant step forward in the beginning of June 2012 when the North West Department of Economic Development, Environment, Conservation and Tourism organised a launching ceremony during which the province and affected stakeholders formally endorsed the Magaliesberg Biosphere Reserve.
The Premier of the North West Province, Ms. Thandi Modise called on young people to be actively involved in the preservation and conservation of the environment. She urged people to pay attention to the damage being done to the earth and to the impact this would have on future generations.
Premier Modise acknowledged the role of their international funders and partners: "This project could not have been successful without the partnership that we forged with the Finnish Environment Institute and Central Finland Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment", she said.
The Chairman of the Magaliesberg Biosphere Initiative Group, Mr. Vincent Carruthers, also expressed appreciation to the Finnish delegation and the funding which made it possible to complete the research and preparations for the UNESCO biosphere application.
The Magaliesberg Biosphere Initiative has nearly reached its main target. The documents for the UNESCO application are being finalised and will be submitted by the national Department for Environmental Affairs to the UNESCO in September. South Africa is expected to celebrate the registration of the Magaliesberg Biosphere in early 2013.
Source: Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland
For over a decade Finland has been part of a co-operation scheme between Finnish and South African environmental administrations. The latest, still on-going, mutual effort has been the Support to Magaliesberg Biosphere Initiative. The Initiative has been supported through an Institutional Cooperation Instrument (ICI) project financed by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland.
The cooperation is based on exchange of experiences and knowledge between the experts of the Finnish Environment Institute, the Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment for Central Finland and the Gauteng and North West Province administrations in South Africa. The project has aimed at creating a new biosphere reserve in the Magaliesberg mountain area situated in the two provinces. There are already six existing biospheres in South Africa and two in Finland. The establishment process of Lake Päijänne-Vesijärvi biosphere in Finland has also benefited from the ICI-project.
Biosphere reserves are areas internationally recognised within the framework of the Man and the Biosphere (MAB) programme of the UNESCO. It is an innovative and sustainable approach to managing land and water resources across landscapes made up of one or more bioregions. Biospheres aim at improving livelihoods, enhancing social, economic and cultural conditions, and contributing towards environmental sustainability through means of consolidated land-use guidance and environmentally sound demonstration projects.
Varied Land-Use Forms in the Unique Mountain Area
The Magaliesberg mountain area is situated about 100 km to the north-west of the City of Johannesburg. It has a rich history and biodiversity that forms an important part of the natural and cultural heritage of South Africa. The habitat variety supports more than 130 tree species, 90 mammal species, 80 reptile and amphibian species, and over 450 bird species. The Magaliesberg Mountain along with the Cradle of the Humankind, an area where evidence of the beginning of human race has been traced at, will form the protected core area of the Biosphere.
Many human activities are increasing in the region. Increasing pressures from urbanisation, industrialisation, mining and resulting pollution are major threats to the fragile nature of Magaliesberg.
The zoning of the biosphere defines the allowed and prioritised human activities within the biosphere. A buffer zone usually surrounds the protected core area. In the case of Magaliesberg, voluntary conservancies form the buffer where environmental education, recreation and ecotourism are main activities. The transition zones are areas in which human activities may affect the core and buffer zones and are therefore collaboratively and carefully managed by the various stakeholders to ensure development that is environmentally, socially and economically sustainable.
Constructive Cooperation
The Magaliesberg Biosphere Initiative took a significant step forward in the beginning of June 2012 when the North West Department of Economic Development, Environment, Conservation and Tourism organised a launching ceremony during which the province and affected stakeholders formally endorsed the Magaliesberg Biosphere Reserve.
The Premier of the North West Province, Ms. Thandi Modise called on young people to be actively involved in the preservation and conservation of the environment. She urged people to pay attention to the damage being done to the earth and to the impact this would have on future generations.
Premier Modise acknowledged the role of their international funders and partners: "This project could not have been successful without the partnership that we forged with the Finnish Environment Institute and Central Finland Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment", she said.
The Chairman of the Magaliesberg Biosphere Initiative Group, Mr. Vincent Carruthers, also expressed appreciation to the Finnish delegation and the funding which made it possible to complete the research and preparations for the UNESCO biosphere application.
The Magaliesberg Biosphere Initiative has nearly reached its main target. The documents for the UNESCO application are being finalised and will be submitted by the national Department for Environmental Affairs to the UNESCO in September. South Africa is expected to celebrate the registration of the Magaliesberg Biosphere in early 2013.
Source: Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland
Monday, July 9, 2012
When will the political interference stop?
After President John F Kennedy was assassinated, Malcolm X famously said that the assassination was a case of the “chickens coming home to roost,” adding that “chickens coming home to roost never did make me sad; they’ve always made me glad.” In other words, he was implying that since the white man had used violence so often and so easily in America (especially against black Americans), it was just cosmic balance that the President would become a victim of violence.
Well, the chickens are coming home to roost big time with regard to the on-going political manipulation and abuse of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) by various political factions within the ANC. When a perception takes hold that the NPA will prosecute some and avoid prosecuting others solely on the basis of their political connections or on the basis of whether they belong to the faction associated with the incumbent President or not, the credibility of that institution is fatally compromised.
When newspapers then report allegations of flagrant political interference in decisions to prosecute politically connected politicians (as the Mail & Guardian again did on Friday), few well-informed people will read such reports with scepticism. After all, we know that the NPA has often made decisions in the past based on political rather on legal considerations (including in the case relating to the prosecution of President Zuma and then later, the dropping of charges against President Zuma).
It was exactly to prevent this sorry state of affairs, that the drafters of our Constitution included a provision in section 179(4) of the Constitution which states that: “National legislation must ensure that the prosecuting authority exercises its functions without fear, favour or prejudice”. Of course, politicians, including then President Thabo Mbeki and now President Jacob Zuma, do not like to focus on this section of the Constitution, instead pointing to section 179(6) of the Constitution to justify direct interference in the decisions of the NPA. This section states that: “The cabinet member responsible for the administration of justice must exercise final responsibility over the prosecuting authority”.
What the politicians choose to ignore is the following.
The Constitutional Court, in the First Certification Judgment, confirmed that despite this strange provision about the Minister having to exercise final responsibility for the NPA, the Constitution created an independent body in the following terms:
[Section] 179(4) provides that the national legislation must ensure that the prosecuting authority exercises its functions without fear, favour or prejudice. There is accordingly a constitutional guarantee of independence, and any legislation or executive action inconsistent therewith would be subject to constitutional control by the courts.
The politicians also conveniently ignore the judgment of the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA), in which it dealt with the need for the NPA to be independent while also taking cognisance of the need for the Minister to take final responsibility for the NPA in the following terms:
[T]he Constitution on the one hand vests the prosecutorial responsibility in the NPA while, on the other, it provides that the Minister must exercise final responsibility over it. These provisions may appear to conflict but, as the Namibian Supreme Court held in relation to comparable provisions in its Constitution, they are not incompatible. It held (I am using terms that conform with our Constitution) that although the Minister may not instruct the NPA to prosecute or to decline to prosecute or to terminate a pending prosecution, the Minister is entitled to be kept informed in respect of all prosecutions initiated or to be initiated which might arouse public interest or involve important aspects of legal or prosecutorial authority.
That is why the NPA Act requires members of the prosecuting authority to serve “impartially” and exercise, carry out or perform their powers, duties and functions “in good faith and without fear, favour or prejudice” and subject only to the Constitution and the law. The Act further provides that no one may interfere “improperly” with the NPA in the performance of its duties and functions (in section 32(1)(b) of the Act).
The Act confirms that the manner in which the Minister exercises final responsibility over the NPA is by obliging the NDPP, at the request of the Minister, to furnish the latter with information or a report with regard to any case and to provide the Minister with reasons for any decision taken. The Minister can ask for information, but cannot give any instructions or make any requests regarding the prosecution or non-prosecution of anybody (unless, of course, the Minister is intent on committing a criminal offence by “improperly” trying to influence the NPA).
Of course, problems around political interference in the work of the NPA and the corrupt influence of political loyalties on NPA decisions arise not only when the Minister tries to issue illegal and criminal instructions to the NPA (as former Minister Bridget Mbandla did when she sent a letter – drafted by Menzi Simelane – to former head of the NPA, Vusi Pikoli to stop the arrest of a crook who also happened to be the Police Commissioner ), but also when members in leadership positions inside the NPA stop acting in good faith and instead make decisions based purely on their own political loyalties and self-interest.
When they are willing to do the bidding of their political masters without being instructed to do so, or when they improperly follow the hints or instructions of the Minister or other member of the relevant political faction inside the ANC, they destroy the credibility of the NPA and directly undermine the Rule of Law by creating a situation in which some criminals are above the law because of the political protection they enjoy.
The allegations in the Mail & Guardian regarding the interference in the “Three Amigo’s” case as well as the allegations tha5t the disciplinary charges were brought against prosecutor Glynnis Breytenbach for what appears to be her rather enthusiastic pursuit of the company owned by President Zuma’s financial benefactors, the Gupta’s, or because of her pursuit of that bastion of probity and honesty, Richard Mdluli, illustrate the dangers of the political “capturing of the NPA rather well.
Even if all these allegations are false, given the past abuse of the NPA many people will think them credible or even true. They will think it is true because the chickens have truly come home to roost for the politically much abused and subverted NPA. Who on earth is ever going to believe the protestations of the NPA that there is no political interference when there is such strong proof of on-going political interference at the NPA? I know, I won’t.
It is ironic that President Zuma, who complained bitterly about the abuse of the NPA by the Thabo Mbeki faction when he was facing corruption charges has overseen the further erosion of trust in this institution. I guess it was bad when the other guys were doing it, but now that he is in charge the principles are slightly different to suite the politics. But I guess he will only realise how the chickens have ccome home to roost if he loses his bid for another term as ANC and South African President and again faces the possibility of having to explain to a judge why he took a bribe from Schabir Shaik.
Source: Constitutionally Speaking
Well, the chickens are coming home to roost big time with regard to the on-going political manipulation and abuse of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) by various political factions within the ANC. When a perception takes hold that the NPA will prosecute some and avoid prosecuting others solely on the basis of their political connections or on the basis of whether they belong to the faction associated with the incumbent President or not, the credibility of that institution is fatally compromised.
When newspapers then report allegations of flagrant political interference in decisions to prosecute politically connected politicians (as the Mail & Guardian again did on Friday), few well-informed people will read such reports with scepticism. After all, we know that the NPA has often made decisions in the past based on political rather on legal considerations (including in the case relating to the prosecution of President Zuma and then later, the dropping of charges against President Zuma).
It was exactly to prevent this sorry state of affairs, that the drafters of our Constitution included a provision in section 179(4) of the Constitution which states that: “National legislation must ensure that the prosecuting authority exercises its functions without fear, favour or prejudice”. Of course, politicians, including then President Thabo Mbeki and now President Jacob Zuma, do not like to focus on this section of the Constitution, instead pointing to section 179(6) of the Constitution to justify direct interference in the decisions of the NPA. This section states that: “The cabinet member responsible for the administration of justice must exercise final responsibility over the prosecuting authority”.
What the politicians choose to ignore is the following.
The Constitutional Court, in the First Certification Judgment, confirmed that despite this strange provision about the Minister having to exercise final responsibility for the NPA, the Constitution created an independent body in the following terms:
[Section] 179(4) provides that the national legislation must ensure that the prosecuting authority exercises its functions without fear, favour or prejudice. There is accordingly a constitutional guarantee of independence, and any legislation or executive action inconsistent therewith would be subject to constitutional control by the courts.
The politicians also conveniently ignore the judgment of the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA), in which it dealt with the need for the NPA to be independent while also taking cognisance of the need for the Minister to take final responsibility for the NPA in the following terms:
[T]he Constitution on the one hand vests the prosecutorial responsibility in the NPA while, on the other, it provides that the Minister must exercise final responsibility over it. These provisions may appear to conflict but, as the Namibian Supreme Court held in relation to comparable provisions in its Constitution, they are not incompatible. It held (I am using terms that conform with our Constitution) that although the Minister may not instruct the NPA to prosecute or to decline to prosecute or to terminate a pending prosecution, the Minister is entitled to be kept informed in respect of all prosecutions initiated or to be initiated which might arouse public interest or involve important aspects of legal or prosecutorial authority.
That is why the NPA Act requires members of the prosecuting authority to serve “impartially” and exercise, carry out or perform their powers, duties and functions “in good faith and without fear, favour or prejudice” and subject only to the Constitution and the law. The Act further provides that no one may interfere “improperly” with the NPA in the performance of its duties and functions (in section 32(1)(b) of the Act).
The Act confirms that the manner in which the Minister exercises final responsibility over the NPA is by obliging the NDPP, at the request of the Minister, to furnish the latter with information or a report with regard to any case and to provide the Minister with reasons for any decision taken. The Minister can ask for information, but cannot give any instructions or make any requests regarding the prosecution or non-prosecution of anybody (unless, of course, the Minister is intent on committing a criminal offence by “improperly” trying to influence the NPA).
Of course, problems around political interference in the work of the NPA and the corrupt influence of political loyalties on NPA decisions arise not only when the Minister tries to issue illegal and criminal instructions to the NPA (as former Minister Bridget Mbandla did when she sent a letter – drafted by Menzi Simelane – to former head of the NPA, Vusi Pikoli to stop the arrest of a crook who also happened to be the Police Commissioner ), but also when members in leadership positions inside the NPA stop acting in good faith and instead make decisions based purely on their own political loyalties and self-interest.
When they are willing to do the bidding of their political masters without being instructed to do so, or when they improperly follow the hints or instructions of the Minister or other member of the relevant political faction inside the ANC, they destroy the credibility of the NPA and directly undermine the Rule of Law by creating a situation in which some criminals are above the law because of the political protection they enjoy.
The allegations in the Mail & Guardian regarding the interference in the “Three Amigo’s” case as well as the allegations tha5t the disciplinary charges were brought against prosecutor Glynnis Breytenbach for what appears to be her rather enthusiastic pursuit of the company owned by President Zuma’s financial benefactors, the Gupta’s, or because of her pursuit of that bastion of probity and honesty, Richard Mdluli, illustrate the dangers of the political “capturing of the NPA rather well.
Even if all these allegations are false, given the past abuse of the NPA many people will think them credible or even true. They will think it is true because the chickens have truly come home to roost for the politically much abused and subverted NPA. Who on earth is ever going to believe the protestations of the NPA that there is no political interference when there is such strong proof of on-going political interference at the NPA? I know, I won’t.
It is ironic that President Zuma, who complained bitterly about the abuse of the NPA by the Thabo Mbeki faction when he was facing corruption charges has overseen the further erosion of trust in this institution. I guess it was bad when the other guys were doing it, but now that he is in charge the principles are slightly different to suite the politics. But I guess he will only realise how the chickens have ccome home to roost if he loses his bid for another term as ANC and South African President and again faces the possibility of having to explain to a judge why he took a bribe from Schabir Shaik.
Source: Constitutionally Speaking
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