Dwelmhandelaar loop rieme styf
GEMSBOK-UPINGTON: Die vinnige reaksie deur lede van Upington Misdaadvoorkoming het die afgelope naweek die arrestasie van ‘n 36-jarige man vir besit van dwelms tot gevolg gehad. Die verdagte het vermoedelik dwelms verkoop in die omgewing van Jooste -Eiland en lede van Upington Misdaadvoorkomingseenheid het ‘n wenk ontvang en het vinnig daarop gereageer. To read the full story, read our 17 May 2019 issue Suid Afrika op die rand van totale ekonomiese ineenstorting? - Page 13 - Stormfront
Suid Afrika op die rand van totale ekonomiese ineenstorting?
10-26-2014, 06:17 PM #121
Location: South Africa, ZAR, Germiston
Re: Suid Afrika op die rand van totale ekonomiese ineenstorting?
Een van die vele faktore wat kan bydra tot die onbetwiste vernietiging van Suid-Afrika se ekonomie: wantroue in die land se ekonomiese stabiliteit en vooruitgang, wat op sy beurt die oorsaak is dat 'n stygende aantal groot besighede toeneemend die land verlaat.
Die groot aantal vermoënde mense sowel as heelwat groot maatskappye wat die land verlaat, is ’n teken van wantroue in die toekoms wat daartoe kan lei dat Suid-Afrika vinniger verval as wat verwag is.
Al hoe meer welvarende mense besig is om hulle ankers te lig om elders te gaan woon. Ekonome en ontleders is dit eens dat die tendens ernstige gevolge kan inhou vir die land se ekonomiese vooruitgang.
Mandela implemented an aggressive affirmative action policy once he took office - which slowed down the economy.
The high crime rates, and a decline in educational standards, led to a massive emigration of White professionals to the United States, UK, Canada, and Australia. A 1998 poll of 11,000 skilled professionals suggested that 74 percent wanted to emigrate - with then-president Mandela responding with "Good riddance" to them. The problem is that not just professionals leave South Africa - major corporations also moved out, including mining giant Anglo American Co. and South African Breweries, both of which are now headquartered in London.
- Michael Radu, Front Page Magazine, February 6, 2003
Skakel: Terrorist watch!
Big business votes with its feet
TJ Strydom | 06 October, 2014 00:01
A great trek of companies from South Africa is under way, even as the government talks of "reindustrialising" the economy.
Multinational companies increasingly view their South African operations as "orphan assets", says Investment Solutions economist Chris Hart, pointing to plans by mining behemoth BHP Billiton to "demerge" most of its local mines into a separate company.
Billiton is not alone. Furniture giant Steinhoff International got the go-ahead from the Reserve Bank in July to move its primary listing to Frankfurt, the first major corporate move abroad since those by Anglo American, Old Mutual and SABMiller 15 years ago.
Since Steinhoff got the nod other companies have approached the Reserve Bank to do similar deals.
Sasfin economist David Shapiro says companies are "silently leaving", seeking better projects and opportunities elsewhere.
The manufacturing sector has in the past six years shrunk from 16.4% of the economy to 11.1%.
In the same period "general government services" have swelled from 12.4% of GDP to 17.2%.
"The government has been pushing the private sector out of the economy for the past five years," says Hart.
It is not only feeble economic growth - forecast by most economists to reach only about 1.5% this year - that is convincing big corporations to move.
A policy analyst at the South African Chamber of Commerce, and Industry, Pietman Roos, says:
* the high cost of doing business here and
* general unpredictability of policy changes are major reasons.
"Several policy suggestions, including the investment bill, the Private Security Industry Regulations Amendment Bill and the agricultural property policy, contain direct threats to property rights. It is understandable if investors feel wary of even expanding their footprint," says Roos.
Hart calls it "hedging against South Africa".
Other big moves include:
* Gold Fields last year unbundled Sibanye Gold;
* Logistics company Bidvest plans to list its food business, one of its most lucrative divisions, in London;
* Sasol, the largest industrial company in the country, is making one of this decade's largest foreign investments in the US; and
* AngloGold Ashanti, the third-largest gold miner in the world, tried to split its assets into a South African bundle and the rest. Shareholders were not keen to fork out more than R20-billion to ensure that the entity would be debt-free, a condition set by the Reserve Bank.
ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe last week accused business of being on an "investment strike".
Roos says this not a fair portrayal and blames the regulatory framework for failing to ensure an environment friendly to business.
"The reality is that any business wants to expand, but the regulatory cost and policy uncertainty does not make it worthwhile," he says.
Hart calls Mantashe's comments "utter rubbish".
"If you look at the latest Reserve Bank quarterly bulletin you'll see that about two-thirds of the investment in this country comes from the private sector," he says.
Greener pastures are not necessarily over the ocean. The Automotive Leather Company, a manufacturer based in Pretoria, is relocating to Lesotho to cut costs, it was reported last week. The move could result in the loss of as many as 600 jobs.
"We are the 'sick man of the emerging markets'," says Hart.
South Africa used to be attractive as an emerging market because of its good capital markets and because it was big enough to form a critical mass for investors.
"It has been a slow puncture," says Hart.
South Africa slips a few places down the World Economic Forum's global competitiveness report every year, dropping to 56th in 2014.
"When you are attractive, you attract capital easily. You don't have to do all sorts of peculiar things," says Hart.
Skakel: Big business votes with its feet - Times LIVE
EENDRAG MAAK MAG:
Een doel: Soewereine Onafhanklikheid in 'n eie, vrye Soewereine blanke Boererepubliek waar die Boervolk oor homself regeer.
Een metode: Spanwerk.
Een strewe: Blanke, volkseie arbeid alleen.
Een ekonomiese stelsel: Volkseie vrye mark
Find More Posts by vanAswegen
03-20-2015, 06:58 PM #122
'n Eie, vrye Onafhanklike Boererepubliek? - Uitdagings op die weg na algehele Vryheid:
Miskien moet ons die gesprek van 'n ander kant af benader en onsself afvra: watter vereistes sal ons gebruik om 'n toekomstige Onafhanklike Boererepubliek mee te evalueer? Dus hoe kyk ons na 'n voorstel om te bepaal of die voorstel goed of sleg is. As ons weet waarna ons soek kan ons kyk wat die mees gangbare oplossing is.
Hierdie is die kriteria waaraan mens dalk vorendag kan kom:
* Huidige bevolkingsverspreiding
Verseker een van die grootste dilemmas in ons Volk se geskiedenis.
Dis belangrik dat ons ten minste daartoe in staat moet wees om 'n meerderheid in die grondgebied te raak en die meerderheids bevolking te bly. Dit beteken 'n lae nie-Boere bevolking (en die verskeie Volkere wat met die Boervolk se strewe na Vryheid mee sal vereensellig en sal ondersteun), nie numeries sterk genoeg sal wees om ons aanspraak op die gebied te bestry nie. 'n Goeie hoeveelheid Boere reeds in die gebied sal ook belangrik wees.
* Gewilligheid van Suid Afrika om afstand te doen van die gebied
Ongeag wat die wette voorskryf, as die Suid Afrikaanse regering voel hul gaan tenagekom word deur afstand te doen van die gebied, sal hul verskonings soek om dit te keer.
* Toegang tot die see
Vir handelsdoeleindes moet ons ter alle tye onbelemmerd met die buiteland kan handeldryf. 'n Landgeslote gebied is buite die kwessie, want dan sal ons verbintenis met ander nasies afhang van ons buurland(e) se goedgesindheid.
Dit is vanselfsprekend. Daar sal moet eendragtig gewerk word om 'n wettige Volksgedrewe weermag en polisiemag op die been te bring om die landsgrense van die Onafhanklike Boererepubliek (wat aan die voorwaarde van die Internasionale Volkereg, Volkeregtelik ooreenstem) teen ongewenste indringers, nadat Onafhanklikheid wettig verkry word, te beskerm.
* Landboukundige dragkrag
In meeste gevalle sal dit nie ekonomies kruppelend wees om 'n netto-invoerder van voedsel te wees nie, maar die toekoms van voedselvoorsiening vir die groeiende wêreldbevolking lyk onseker. Om te veel staat te maak op die invoer van voedsel kan lewenskostes ongerieflik hoog maak.
* Geskiedkundige verbintenis / Die landsburgers moet voel dis hul "tuiste"
'n Emosionele kriterium, en daarom juis ook baie geldig. Dink byvoorbeeld aan al die gevalle in die wêreldgeskiedenis waar die terme "Moederland" en "Vaderland" gebruik is om bevolkings tot aksie aan te spoor. Hier sal dus verkieslik op toegespits moet word op die internasionale erkende en geskiedkundige grondgebiede van die Boervolk die ZAR, OVS en Vryheid.
* Bestaande infrastruktuur
Soos reeds elders genoem is: dis moeilik om mense te oorreed om hul bestaande lewenswyse agter te laat ter wille van 'n nuwe begin.
* Minerale rykdom en invoer en uitvoer van noodsaaklikhede
Noodsaaklik om beleggers van oorsee te lok om in die toekomstige Onafhanklike Boererepubliek te bele en ekonomiese drakrag en stabiliteit daaraan te verseker.
03-20-2015, 07:02 PM #123
Daar bestaan huideglik heelwat hindernisse of dan negetiewe aspekte om ons toekomstige Soewereine Onafhanklike Boererepubliek te verweesenlik. Net 'n paar gedagtes:
1. Die finansieele aspek daaraan verbonde: meeste volksgenote het skuld; dit kos geld om jou self te ontwortel (hul werk heelwaarskynlik te los) en vernaam na 'n onbekende gebied te trek en te verhuis.
2. Die ekonomiese aspek: infrastruktuur wat nog nie gebou is nie (eiendomme, besighede, skole, munisipaliteite ens) verg natuurlik heelwat arbeid en geld.
3. Daar sal toeneemend en liefs op blanke, volkseie arbeid geskoei moet word.
4. Wat doen jy met die gekleurde, wettige burgers van die voornemende grondgebied wat alreeds daar woon (sommige 3 tot 5 generasies lank)? Hulle sal beslis nie gewillig trek nie en hoe voorkom mens konfrontasie? Mens wil dit spoedig en pynloos as moontlik doen. Mens moet natuurlik ook dink aan die mense regte aspek (wat natuurlik internasionaal afgedwing sal word by jou keelgat) daarvan.
Tenspyte of ons volk die toekomstige Onafhanklike Boererepubliek volgens Internasionale Volkereg dit verkry het en daaraan wettiglik voldoen.
5. Kan minerale in daardie bestaande grondgebied ontgin en gebruik word?
6. Is daar grond wat daaraan voldoen om op te boer?
7. Is daar 'n hawe vir invoer en uitvoer van minerale (en benodighede) en om die grondgebied beskerming te kan verleen? Daar moet in aanmerking geneem word dat sommige lande sanksies en boikotte kan instel op daardie grondgebied. Dus moet daar toeneemende vrienskaplike bande met oorseese onafhanklike lande (dus volkstate) soos Belgie, Vlaminge en die Nasionalistiese partye van bv. Duitsland en ander Europiese lande gesmee word. Daar moet nou al op die ekonomiese aspek van veral invoer en uitvoer van minerale en noodsaaklikhede op aandag geskenk word.
03-20-2015, 07:03 PM #124
Die weg na Onafhanklikheid - Etlike voordele:
Nadat die Boervolk sy soewereine onafhanklikheid verkry en uitgeroep het vra 'n mens teregtelik, wat nou?
Hoe gaan die ekonomiese dryfkrag van die onafhanklike grondgebied sy aanvang kry? Wat sal die ekonomiese stesel wat daar bestaan, bekend staan? Wat kan mens voorspel?
Sal daar werk wees vir al onse Volksgenote in die toekomstige onafhanklike Boererepubliek?
Wel, soos enige voorspellings sal dit maar tot dusver net soos voorspellings maar is, wees. Maar daar sal ook vooraf al deeglike beplanning moet wees as so 'n groot en omvangryke gebeurtenis in ons volk se geskiedenis ooit 'n sukses te laat en GAAN wees. Hier moet ons ten alle tye nugter, realisties en optemisties dink EN te werke gaan:
1. Die belangrikste natuurlik: dat daar genoeg werk sal MOET geskep word en in die vroee vase van besetting klaar beskikbaar moet wees vir ons volksgenote, in sodanige onafhanklike grondgebied.
Sal daar werk vir ALMAL wees? Dit is te betwyfel. Maar goedertroue so, want is daar tog enige landskap beskikbaar regoor die wêreld wat tans nie 'n werkloosheid probleem het nie? EN as mens 'n tydjie terug in ons gekiedenis gaan, terug in die ou Apartheids jare selfs tydens Dr. Verwoerd se administrasie in die 1960's, was daar werk vir al ons Volksgenote? Die antwoord is 'n defnitiewe NEE.
Maar daar was natuurlik werk beskikbaar (heelwat meer as vandag) vir die meerderheid van die blankes en betreklik min blankes was sonder werk, veel minder as mens na die statistieke van die blanke werkloosheids syfers huidiglik kyk.
Die kanse staan betreklik goed dat daar net soveel werk vir alle blankes in die toekomstige onafhanklike grondgebiede(e) GAAN wees, net soos daar was in die 1960 ekonomiese bloei tydpek sal wees, mits die betrokke besetters in die onafhanklike grondgebied bereid is om natuurlik pligsgetrou te WERK! Ons BOERE kan mos!
2. En die lone van jou werksverigtinge? Dit sal gebaseer word op regverdige MERIETE en die hoeveelheid werk wat jy in jou arbeid insit. Daar sal moet genoeg kos op die tafel wees, nodige lewens behoeftes en 'n dak oor die kop vir almal wees. Die laer inkomste klas sal daar natuurlik elke dag brood op die tafel wees sodat niemand ooit weer sal verlang om terug te trek nuwe Suid Afrika toe nie!
Daar sal hoofsaaklik 'n betreklike GROOT middel inkomste klas teenwoordig moet wees teenoor die hoee en laer inkomste klasse.
3. Buitelandse betrekkings met die leuse: die (toekomstige) Onafhanklike Boererepubliek(e) EERSTE.
4. Handhawing van wet en orde as die eerste plig van daardie bestaande Boere Regering.
Daar sal natuurlik betreklik MIN misdaad wees en ons kinders kan weer sorgvry in die strate loop net soos in die ou dae varal in die 1960 jare en dit sal nie nodig wees om agter grein en gordel jou huishousing, toe te sluit nie. Iets om na uit te sien! Met 'n paraate, sterk blanke Volkseie, wettige weermag en polisiemag KAN jy!
5. Vrye ondernemingskap en natuurlik, beperking van monopolisme in nasionale Volksbelang. Daar moet 'n goeie verhouding bestaan tussen groot en kleiner sake ondernemings en GESONDE kompetisie in besigheids verhoudinge.
6. Genoeg (blanke, Volkseie) CVO-skole, hospitale, munisipalitiete en staatsinstellings wat GOEIE dienslewering lewer, SAL daar wees vir almal in die onafhanklike grondgebied(e). Kyk na al die landskappe oorsee, waar die meerderheid bevolking blank is en die Regering van die dag blank is dan kan jy die verskil SIEN (dit gestel teenoor die nuwe veelrassige Suid Afrika en donker Afrika). Hoeveel maal kan ons Boervolk nie BETER nie!
7. Geen wette soos onder anderre Regstellende Aksie, BEE, AGRIBEE sal daar bestaan om ons Volksgenote te diskrimineer nie. Eie wette wat toegepas word deur die bestaande Boere Regering om blanke en Volksbelang te teenwoordig en te ondersteun.
03-20-2015, 07:04 PM #125
Suid-Afrika: Net 'n kwessie van tyd voordat die land se ekonomie finaal ineen sal stort en 'n chaotiese massa opstand teen die regering sy voorland is.
I can predict when SA’s "Tunisia Day" will arrive. Tunisia Day is when the masses rise against the powers that be, as happened recently in Tunisia. The year will be 2020, give or take a couple of years. The year 2020 is when China estimates that its current minerals-intensive industrialisation phase will be concluded.
BEE promotes a number of extremely negative socioeconomic trends in our country.
* It promotes a class of politicians dependent on big business and therefore promotes big business’s interests in the upper echelons of government.
* Second, BEE promotes an anti-entrepreneurial culture among the black middle class by legitimising an environment of entitlement.
* Third, affirmative action, a subset of BEE, promotes incompetence and corruption in the public sector by using ruling party allegiance and connections as the criteria for entry and promotion in the public service, instead of having tough public service entry examinations.
* The economy has a strong built-in dependence on cheap labour;
* It has a strong built-in dependence on the exploitation of primary resources;
* It is strongly unfavourable to the development of skills in our general population;
* It has a strong bias towards importing technology and economic solutions; and
* It promotes inequality between citizens by creating a large, marginalised underclass.
* Conglomerates are a vehicle, not for creating development in SA but for exploiting natural resources without creating in-depth, inclusive social and economic development, which is what SA needs. That is what is wrong with protecting conglomerates.
What is the state distributing?
It is distributing jobs to party faithful and social welfare to the poor. This is a recipe for incompetence and corruption, both of which are endemic in SA. This is what explains the service delivery upheavals that are becoming a normal part of our environment.
- Mbeki is the author of Architects of Poverty: Why African Capitalism Needs Changing. This article forms part of a series on transformation supplied by the Centre for Development and Enterprise.
Link: South Africa: Only a matter of time before the bomb explodes | Leader.co.za
03-20-2015, 08:27 PM #126
Is the SACP emerging from its red Trojan horse to take control and lead a socialist revolution?
There is also little doubt that the South African Communist Party (SACP) finds itself entrenched in government in the strongest position it has ever been.
Red Trojan horse in the ANC’s policy room?
Always at his (Jacob Zuma) side is Minister in the Presidency Jeff Radebe, who seems to be de facto in charge in Zuma’s absence. In fact, Radebe has become the most powerful member of the cabinet after Zuma with ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe, the most powerful person in Luthuli House, ANC headquarters.
During the last two weeks Mantashe has been issuing all-important statements on behalf of government and even parliament, clearly overstepping the line that is supposed to separate political party from state, without batting an eye.
Both Radebe and Mantashe happen to be central committee members of the South African Communist Party (SACP). Senior members of the SACP have also been issuing most of the statements on both government and ANC economic policies since the elections.
This is significant considering to what extent SACP members – some of them also trade unionists – feature in the new Zuma-cabinet, especially in the economic cluster, and in other key positions, without the party ever having participated in a general election under its own banner.
While Radebe is in charge of the government’s implementation of the NDP, other key positions filled by prominent communists include:
Trade and Industry Minister – Rob Davies;
Economic Development Minister – Ebrahim Patel;
Energy Minister – Tina Joemat-Pettersson;
Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister – Senzeni Zokwana;
Higher Education Minister – Blade Nzimande;
Water and Sanitation Minister – Nomvula Mokonyane;
Home Affairs Minister – Malusi Gigaba;
Public Works Deputy Minister – Jeremy Cronin,
Justice and Correctional Services Deputy Minister – Thabang Makwetla;
Mineral Resources Deputy Minister – Godfrey Oliphant; and
National Planning and Monitoring Deputy Minister in the Presidency – Buti Manamela.
Jointly they represent 11, or over 50%, of the 19 ministries that usually make up the Cabinet Committee for the Economic Sectors, Employment and Infrastructure Development, better known as “the economic cluster”.
There are also a number of ministers and deputy ministers – some also within the economic cluster – who come from a trade union background within the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). Many trade union leaders are also SACP members.
In addition the deputy chairman of the National Council of Provinces Papi Tau, the new chairman of parliament's standing committee on finance Yunus Carrim, and Public Works portfolio committee chairman Ben Martins, are all also leading communists. The finance committee headed by Carrim is responsible for overseeing government adherence to the national budget, the running of the Treasury and the SA Revenue Service.
With so many communists in key positions, especially in respect of the economic terrain, and lately acting as if they are dictating the economic policy direction, especially since the general election, and with communists taking overall charge of things during Zuma’s enforced leave, it inevitably raises the question: who is in charge?
The SACP is one of the oldest Communist parties in the world. It once also was one of the most slavishly Stalinist parties, remnants of which are sometimes arguably still discernable in its activities. Ironically it was formed in 1921 to help protect white job reservation on the mines before being forced to ‘Africanise’ by the Comintern in 1924.
Its basic ideological tenet revolves around the two-phased revolution, namely first the achievement of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR), followed by a socialist revolution. It has fashioned itself the “vanguard party of the workers” electing to piggyback on the much larger and popular ANC. Had it functioned on its own and fought elections, it would probably have disappeared for lack of support.
In this parasitical fashion it has always functioned as a somewhat invisible intellectual core in the ANC. Its doctrine determines that it should play this role within the ANC until the latter has achieved the NDR, after which the SACP will lead the transition to socialism.
The ANC has always endorsed the NDR in its Strategy & Tactics document, the party’s guiding document, reviewed and sometimes adjusted at each national conference.
In an ANC discussion document titled Tasks of the NDR and the Mobilisation of the Motive Forces, drafted at the ANC General Council in 2000, it calls the 1994 transition to democracy “a historic breakthrough” that accomplished a “qualitative element of the National Democratic Revolution” but marked only a “strategic shift”. Citing the 1997 ANC Strategy & Tactics, it then listed a number of further tasks, the most pertinent of which was economic transformation.
In a recent article in Rapport the CEO of the South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR), Frans Cronjé, wrote that the “red danger” is in charge and that it looked as if “the SACP won the elections”. He quoted research by an SAIRR intern, Yolanda Andrag, showing “more than 40% of the cabinet posts were given to current or former SACP members”.
The SACP members “sit quietly behind the throne with immense influence on the direction of thinking in the ANC”. The communists have long been the “engine of ideas” in the ANC, Cronjé wrote.
Back in 2007 already, when the SACP adopted its programme "The South African Road to Socialism" it advocated a “working-class led programme of radical political and socio-economic transformation inspired by the Freedom Charter” that also included much of the above. Much of this is also included in recent legislative moves introduced by the government.
Nonetheless, for his part Zuma promised prior to the elections that the second-phase “radical economic transformation” would be implemented after the elections, while the ANC seemed to be downplaying the NDP in its election campaign.
However, immediately after the elections Zuma and others started emphasising both the imminent implementation of the NDP and radical economic transformation without any clarification of what exactly was meant.
At the same time that the government has adopted and propagated the implementation of the NDP, it has gone directly against its tone and aims by introducing laws that the Financial Mail has called government’s biggest assault on business to date.
Among these and other controversial laws and measures have been government attempts to strengthen race-based affirmative action; stronger black economic empowerment measures; the cancellation of investment treaties with a number of Western countries; draft legislation that will allow the state to effectively expropriate property without compensation or with state-determined compensation; measures to extend and accelerate land redistribution including no compensation and forcing farmers to hand over ownership of 50% of their land to workers; and draft legislation that effectively will lead to direct state intervention in the security and oil and gas industries, among others.
Since the general election the ANC’s alliance partners have again become more openly critical of the NDP as a vehicle for radical economic transformation. On 2 June the reinstated COSATU secretary general Zwelinzima Vavi told the SABC in an interview that the envisioned radical transformation of the economy cannot be realised through the NDP as it was flawed. Admittedly Vavi may represent a far left and anti-Zuma view in COSATU.
SACP effectively claim victory
On 6 June at a trade union congress in Boksburg, SACP secretary general, Nzimande, followed this up with: “The bottom line is that the ANC-led alliance has won the fifth general election with an overwhelming vote of confidence and majority. This victory is a decisive popular mandate to advance boldly with a second, more radical phase of the democratic transformation of our country.”
Displaying a hard-core communist ideological approach, Nzimande went on to say: “For the SACP, the content of the second, more radical phase of our transition must be understood in the context of the dialectical relationship between the national democratic revolution and socialism.
“This means advancing, deepening, defending and taking responsibility for the national democratic revolution as a foundation for and as the most direct route to building socialism in the concrete conditions of our country. Conversely, this means intensifying the struggle, building momentum towards, capacity for and elements of socialism as the most consistent means for advancing, deepening, defending and taking responsibility for the national democratic revolution. These two dimensions of our Party`s long-standing strategic perspective, the national democratic and the socialist revolution, are not contradictory but mutually reinforcing.
“In the period preceding the ANC's 52nd National Conference there was an intensive and extensive debate about the national democratic revolution. In combat with revisionism, which sought to disconnect the perspective of the national democratic revolution from its roots in the struggle for socialism, it was the SACP and Cosatu that correctly argued that the national democratic revolution had to be radical, radicalised and radicalising. Today this correct perspective is shared by our entire alliance. This perspective is now at the centre of the programme of our government, the fifth democratically elected administration (our italics).”
He also claimed that President Zuma “unambiguously announced a radical new turn as the key priority of his second presidential term”, and that “... structural features that must be transformed include the fact that our economy is still semi-colonial, relying more on mining rather than manufacturing and other services.”
Not once since the general election has this view and such statements – in this instance by a senior member of Zuma’s cabinet – been refuted or contradicted by President Zuma or the ANC.
There are numerous other examples of left wing alliance leaders – and communist members of Zuma’s government – pronouncing on South Africa’s envisaged future economic transformation. In contrast more centrist moderates as well as Zuma himself have been very quiet.
For now it seems at best Ramaphosa may become a transitional 'interim' president if Zuma should depart prematurely, similar to what happened with Mothlanthe’s role after Mbeki’s departure.
There is very little doubt that at present the two most powerful political figures in South Africa – aside from Zuma – are Mantashe and Radebe. There is also little doubt that the Communist Party finds itself entrenched in government in the strongest position it has ever been.
It is against this background that Zuma’s SONA should be scrutinised and analysed for some indications of who is really in charge, and what economic direction South Africa will most likely be taking.
- by Stef Terblanche
(Stef Terblanche is an independent political analyst and journalist based in Cape Town. He specialises in Southern African politics, labour relations, business en economic issues, but has also written extensively about many other topics. He writes for various media and provides services to corporate and institutional clients. He is a regular contributor to The Intelligence Bulletin)
Interviews & various own research.
The Intelligence Bulletin - June 8 & May 30, 2014
ANC Strategy & Tactics 1997.
ANC Strategy & Tactics 2012.
ANC General Council Discussion Document, July 2000.
ANC policy discussion document "The Second Transition - Building a national democratic society and the balance of forces in 2012" – February 2012.
SACP discussion document – "Let's Not Monumentalise The National Development Plan" – May 2013.
The SACP`s Programme of action to advance the goals of "The South African Road to Socialism" – July 2007.
“South African Road to Socialism” - adopted at SACP 13th National Congress, July 2012.
TimesLIVE 13 June 2014 – “Rejects land in the butter”.
Rapport – “Die rooi gevaar is terug (of was hy ooit weg?)” – 31 May 2014.
South African Communist Party (SACP), O'Malley archives, Nelson Mandela Foundation.
Creamer Media’s Mining Weekly – “Govt committed to maintaining fiscal sustainability – Treasury” – 13 June 2014.
Media releases – National Treasury – 11 & 13 June 2014.
FW de Klerk Foundation – Article: President Zuma’s Second Inaugural Address – May 2014.
Address by His Excellency President Jacob Zuma on the occasion of his inauguration as fifth president of the Republic of South Africa – Issued by The Presidency, 24 May 2014.
Executive Summary & National Development Plan – November 2011.
Business Day - National plan falls foul of ANC’s partners – 12 June 2013.
ANC/SACP/COSATU Alliance Summit Declaration – 1 September 2013.
The Intelligence Bulletin - South African election year promises a rough ride – 13 January 2014.
Joint SACP-COSATU Bilateral statement: "A call on the working class to close ranks" – 16 April 2014.
SACP Statement on President Zuma’s cabinet announcement – 25 May 2014.
Source: The Intelligence Bulletin
Link: Political Analysis
03-20-2015, 09:40 PM #127
Since 1994, South Africa has become a Third World basket case.
Communism was, and remains, the animating ideology of the ANC. That makes it the enduring tragedy of South Africa.
Under one-party leftist domination since 1994, South Africa has become a Third World basket case. It vies with Iraq and Colombia to be the world’s most violent country. In a country of 43 million, the official estimate of 60 annual murders per every 100,000 people (compared to six in the U.S. and fewer than two in the EU), is a gross understatement: Interpol pegs it at nearly twice that amount, for a staggering 54,000 homicides per annum.
The South African reality differs from the Western lore.
by Andrew C. McCarthy - senior fellow at the National Review Institute
‘Go safely Umkhonto. Umkhonto we Sizwe. We the members of the Umkhonto have pledged ourselves to kill them — kill the whites.” These are lyrics from the anthem of Umkhonto we Sizwe, or “Spear of the Nation.” The organization is better known as the MK, the military wing of the Marxist African National Congress (ANC). The MK was established by its commander, Nelson Mandela, to prosecute a terrorist war against South Africa’s racist apartheid regime. Mandela had been out of prison for about two years in September 1992 when, fist clenched in the “black power” salute, he was filmed singing the anthem with a number of his comrades.
Interestingly, but not ironically, as Mandela and others repeated the refrain about killing Boer farmers, it was a white man who stood next to him, similarly clench-fisted and singing. The man’s name is Ronnie Kasrils. A Soviet-trained terrorist who helped Mandela found the MK, Kasrils was a member of the Central Committee of the South African Communist Party. So was Mandela. No surprise there: Communism was, and remains, the animating ideology of the ANC. That makes it the enduring tragedy of South Africa. I admit to finding this week’s Mandela hagiography tough to take. It was, to be sure, predictable. As we’ve observed time and again, once the culture and the institutions of opinion have been surrendered to the Left for two or three generations, you cannot be too surprised to wake up one day and find that the United States is no longer the country you’ve so confidently described as “right of center.” Still, while high-wattage fawning was to be expected in the mainstream media, the conservative press, too, tripped over itself to praise Mandela. That was disheartening.
Race, of course, is at the bottom of all this. We are all properly repulsed by the apartheid system of legally coerced racial segregation. Institutionalized racism is a thing of the past in the United States, but the blight lingers, overshadowing the heroic moral crusade to overcome it and become a nation that fully lives its founding ideals. An event like Nelson Mandela’s death, like the airbrushing of Mandela in life, becomes less about him than it is an occasion to reaffirm our historic, impersonal guilt — it being as facile to proclaim the ability to redeem other people’s sins as to exhibit charity with other people’s money. Nevertheless, it is worth remembering — particularly here at National Review — that the modern conservative movement has never been about liberty as an abstraction. Its trailblazers, led by William F. Buckley Jr., championed liberty in the context of a death struggle against Communism — a “death struggle” precisely because Communists were committed to the destruction of liberty, typically posing as champions of “democracy” as they labored to divide and conquer societies.
In South Africa, the fissure to exploit was race — with the added advantage that apartheid was immoral because it rejected the equal human dignity of every citizen. The ANC, however, were no freedom fighters. The armed struggle Mandela led was not to give every South African an equal opportunity to enjoy the fruits of liberty. It was a will-to-power struggle to give the Communists dominion over the country. As Ron Radosh recounts in the most clear-eyed Mandela remembrance to be found this week, Mandela fully accepted the positions of the South African Communist Party and used its strength to turn the ANC to terrorism. Western journalists want to bleach this history into a noble “people’s war” against an evil, murderous, racist regime. It was hardly that.
The MK led a terrorist insurgency that included bombings of public places. It killed many, many more civilians than it did members of the regime’s security forces — copiously including women and children. Indeed, it killed many more people than the approximately 7,000 black South Africans who, according to the post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission, were killed by the regime during the 46 years of apartheid. In fact, twice that number, over 14,000 people, were killed between 1990 and 1994 — the period during which the ANC was legalized and black-on-black violence became rampant, just as it is in South Africa today. The ANC systematically killed rivals for power and suspected regime informants — most notoriously, by the savage method of “necklacing,” in which a tire filled with gasoline was hung around the terrified victim’s neck and then set on fire. As Ron Radosh further recounts, Mandela struck alliances with the world’s worst Communist thugs. A particular favorite was Fidel Castro, the leader of a Cuba that, Mandela brayed, “stands out head and shoulders above the rest . . . in its love for human rights and liberty.” He similarly courted Moammar Qaddafi, Yasser Arafat, and the totalitarian regimes of North Korea and Iran.
Mandela was thus, naturally, stinging in his rebukes of the United States. In 2002, President Bush — much like the press this week, preferring to see the Mandela of Western lore rather than of South African reality — presented him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. A year later, after the American invasion of Iraq, Mandela ripped the U.S. as “a power with a president who has no foresight and cannot think properly,” who was “now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust. . . . If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America.”
He is deservedly lauded for not following the path of Zimbabwe’s monstrous Marxist dictator, Robert Mugabe. Nevertheless, the thunderous ovation Mugabe received upon arriving at the Soweto stadium for Mandela’s memorial service spoke volumes about “democratic” South Africa, and where it is headed. Defying fears justified by his past, Mandela did not allow South Africa to slide into civil war upon becoming president in 1994. Nor did he immediately fulfill the revolutionary hopes of his fellow Communists.
Nevertheless, as the South African journalist Ilana Mercer recounts in Into the Cannibal’s Pot, a searing if depressing account of her country post-apartheid, approximately 300,000 South Africans have been murdered since the day, almost 20 years ago, that Mandela took office. Admirably, Mandela served one term and relinquished power, setting an example of political transition rare in his corner of the globe. In his term, however, he made capitalism the scapegoat for apartheid and set in motion the government-orchestrated redistribution of wealth, to the great benefit of his ANC cronies. He perversely called the program “deracialization of the economy” — even though the gradual, racially driven divestment of white South Africans is the program’s obvious aim.
He made Ronnie Kasrils minister of the defense forces. Kasrils would continue to serve the Communist party and the post-apartheid government for years after Mandela stepped down, including in a stint as head of the intelligence service.
Under one-party leftist domination since 1994, South Africa has become a Third World basket case. It vies with Iraq and Colombia to be the world’s most violent country. In a country of 43 million, the official estimate of 60 annual murders per every 100,000 people (compared to six in the U.S. and fewer than two in the EU), is a gross understatement: Interpol pegs it at nearly twice that amount, for a staggering 54,000 homicides per annum. Rape is so commonplace it is estimated that one occurs every seven minutes (with one report putting it at one every 26 seconds). Most of the crime is black-on-black, but it is open season on whites — especially white land owners — as one would expect in a place where ditties like the one Mandela was filmed singing in 1992 remain immensely popular. A million white South Africans have fled the country. It may not be a civil war. But it is surely the slide into dystopia that is Communism’s inevitable end. Giving Nelson Mandela his due should not mean obscuring that fact.
Link: National Review
03-21-2015, 08:04 PM #128
Communism and Genocide in South Africa is undeniably alive and well. THE FACTS:
“We would be foolish not to take seriously what the SACP says and writes about its political intentions, It openly plans to hegemonize state power and to establish a socialist and then, ultimately, a communist state. And it has been very successful thus far."
"And yet, unbelievably, the specter of communism has returned to haunt us here in South Africa. In 1928, the Soviet-led Comintern ordered the SACP to “transform” the ANC and develop “systematically the leadership of the workers and the Communist Party in the organization.”
Warnings Grow Over Communism and Genocide in South Africa
As South Africa descends into what its radical rulers refer to as the “Second Phase” of their communist revolution, warnings about an approaching genocide and full-blown communist tyranny are growing progressively louder. In a statement released last week, the organization Genocide Watch again sounded the alarm surrounding the ongoing, regime-linked preparations to exterminate minority Afrikaner farmers. South Africa’s credit rating, meanwhile, was downgraded again last month to barely above “junk” status.
Parliament recently descended into a brawl after a politician called the president a "criminal and a thief." As the warning signs become increasingly obvious, however, the establishment media around the world continues to look the other way.
Even the head of the F.W. De Klerk Foundation, named after the South African president who voluntarily surrendered power to Communist Party bigwig Nelson Mandela’s Soviet-backed African National Congress (ANC), is sounding the alarm about the communist threat. And as if to highlight the looming danger, the Communist Party of China will be financing and building a “political leadership school” to train future ANC bosses in communist doctrine and strategy. The ANC, of course, rules South Africa in an alliance with the brutal South African Communist Party (SACP) and a self-styled Marxist-Leninist umbrella group for labor unions known as COSATU.
As The New American has been reporting for years, anti-Apartheid activist Dr. Gregory Stanton, perhaps the most respected expert on genocide in the world, has long been warning about the specter of Marxist tyranny and the extermination of Afrikaner farmers (Boers) in South Africa. In recent years, South Africa was moved to stage six on a genocide scale that the group developed to identify the phases of genocide. When the move happened, stage six was the preparation and planning phase. Step seven was extermination. The eighth and final stage: denial after the fact.
In 2012, Dr. Stanton sounded the alarm loudly and clearly after a fact-finding trip to the “Rainbow Nation.” In a December 5 announcement this year, though, Stanton said he found that attacks against Afrikaner farmers had not declined since then. “The murder rate of the whole South African population remains at over 31 per 100,000,” Genocide Watch explained. “The murder rate of farmers, including Afrikaner farmers, is four times as high.” For perspective, the murder rate in the United States in 2012 was less than five per 100,000.
“Since 2007, the South African government has denied and covered up the crisis by not releasing any breakdown of how murders are distributed among ethnic groups in South Africa,” the anti-genocide organization continued, adding that American and European governments have remained silent, thereby reinforcing the campaign of denial. While the world ignores the looming catastrophe, though, it is hardly for lack of evidence.
In its recent announcement, Genocide Watch pointed out that former ANC Youth Leader Julius Malema, a “Marxist racist,” revived the “Shoot the Farmer, Kill the Boer” song advocating the extermination of white farmers. Not long after that, current South African President and ANC boss Jacob Zuma began singing the genocidal song in public, too. Stanton noted that incitement to commit genocide is a crime, meaning Malema should be put on trial and Zuma should be impeached.
“Once in power, corrupt governments cling to power because of the enormous wealth their officials amass,” Genocide Watch added. “They then persecute, torture, and murder anyone who challenges their grip on power. That downward spiral has begun in South Africa, just as it did in Zimbabwe.”
The first step to halting the unimaginably savage “farm murders,” Genocide Watch said, “is for the South African government to admit that farm murders are a serious threat not just to Afrikaner and white farmers, but to all South Africans, and make stopping these crimes a priority.” Then, corrupt political leaders must be impeached, arrested, and convicted. “The most important step is for South Africans of all ethnic groups to recognize that we are all members of the same race, the human race,” the organization concluded.
In addition to those warnings, Freedom Front Plus, a right-of-center South African political party that represents Afrikaners, announced in November that it would be seeking to raise international awareness of the problems. Party leader Pieter Mulder said they would make presentations on the theme: “Preventing and addressing violence and atrocities targeted against minorities.” Among other concerns, he said the party would highlight the farm attacks that amount to “genocide,” land claims seeking to expropriate the private property of minorities, and the “dismantling of Afrikaans.”
“The ideological political propaganda which seeks to bolster emotional support relies on the misleading myth that based on Histo-Geo-Political facts that white farmers stole the land from black people, which is vehemently rejected with the contempt it deserves,” explained Mulder. He also highlighted attempts by the ANC-SACP-COSATU government to “absolutely exclude Afrikaners in South Africa from freely participating in economic activities in the country since 1994. Government efforts to dilute and eventually eradicate the Afrikaans language, a derivative of Dutch spoken by the Afrikaners, were also blasted.
Separately, the month before Genocide Watch unveiled its latest warnings about the situation in South Africa, Executive Director Dave Steward of the F.W. de Klerk Foundation sounded the alarm about looming communist tyranny. “During the last century communism brought economic devastation and totalitarian dictatorship wherever it was implemented and resulted in the deaths of over 50 million people,” he said in a speech. “Never in the history of mankind has any political system failed so dismally and brought such suffering to so many people in such a relatively short time.”
“And yet, unbelievably, the specter of communism has returned to haunt us here in South Africa,” Steward added, noting that in 1928, the Soviet-led Comintern ordered the SACP to “transform” the ANC and develop “systematically the leadership of the workers and the Communist Party in the organization.” As the ANC and the SACP both revealed last year, that plot was such a success that even Nelson Mandela, former chief of the ANC and its terrorist wing, was actually on the Communist Party’s Central Committee.
While cautioning against “paranoia” over the threat of total communist domination, Steward also warned against ignoring the growing danger. “We would be foolish not to take seriously what the SACP says and writes about its political intentions,” he explained in a speech. “It openly plans to hegemonize state power and to establish a socialist and then, ultimately, a communist state.” And it has been very successful thus far.
Meanwhile, as the world turns its eyes away, Beijing is rapidly increasing its grip on South Africa. In fact, the Communist Party of China is now openly financing and building an ANC “leadership school” to raise up future communist zealots to rule South Africa in what Time magazine downplayed as “a burgeoning partnership of ruling parties on different continents.” The CPC has also worked closely on similar projects with the regime of mass-murdering Marxist dictator Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, whose brutal autocracy stands accused of genocide and mass atrocities and is a close ally of the SACP-ANC regime in South Africa.
Afrikaner author Harry Booyens, Ph.D., who wrote a massive book shattering myths and lies about the history of his homeland and people entitled AmaBhulu — The Birth and Death of the Second America, told The New American that South Africa is “coming apart.” However, even more troubling for Americans, perhaps, is that South Africa’s plight “really is what is waiting for the U.S.A. if it does not wake up in time.”
“Take a good hard look, because this is the future of the West waiting for all of us,” he said in an e-mail when asked for comment on the latest warnings about communism and genocide. “South Africa is the Canary in the Coal Mine for the West. This is what it looks like when the majority feels entitled to freebies and handouts and a minority delivers the economy and most of the taxes, even as they are being murdered.”
If the world continues refusing to acknowledge the looming and escalating horrors facing South Africa — genocide, communism, mass-murder, and more — that troubled nation will almost certainly continue its ongoing descent into ruin. As countless analysts such as Booyens have pointed out, though, while it may begin there, the carnage will hardly be limited to South Africa. Indeed, the entire Western world may be next in line.
- Alex Newman, a foreign correspondent for The New American
03-21-2015, 09:05 PM #129
ESKOM - Algehele krag-ineenstorting gevrees
Algehele krag-instorting gevrees
Deur Jan de Lange Woensdag 14 Januarie 2015
"Ons senior bestuurslede bid dat niks meer van die huidige infrastruktuur ineenstort nie. Dit kan tot ’n algehele netwerk-ineenstorting lei,” het Tshediso Matona, Eskom-hoof, vandeesweek aan geskokte sakeleiers gesê.
Die land is op die rand van ’n algehele ineenstorting van die kragnetwerk, het Matona volgens Christo van der Rheede, uitvoerende hoof van die Afrikaanse Handelsinstituut (AHI), op ’n inligtingsessie Maandag laat blyk.
Eskom sukkel reeds met twee ernstige probleme: die ontploffing op 30 Maart verlede jaar wat die drukketel van Duvha se eenheid 3 vernietig het en die ineenstorting van ’n steenkool silo by die Majuba-kragsentrale in Oktober. Albei gaan jare duur om te herstel.
Dit het ook Dinsdag aan die lig gekom dat Eskom laat verlede jaar sy reëlings vir ’n aanskakelproses ná ’n algehele krag ineenstorting hersien het en met groot elektrisiteitsverbruikers nuwe reëlings getref het oor wat van hulle verwag word wanneer dit gebeur.
Skakel: Dis nou bid-tyd by Eskom
It's junk status for beleaguered Eskom
TINA WEAVIND | 22 March, 2015
On Thursday, Eskom earned yet another blot on its copybook when ratings agency Standard & Poor's downgraded it to "junk" status, an assessment long shared by many of Eskom's long-suffering customers.
The agency said it had dropped the wheezing power utility from BBB- to BB+ largely because it had suspended four members of its top leadership, including CEO Tshediso Matona last week.
S&P said this "has led us to have less confidence in the company's corporate governance arrangements [and] standalone credit profile".
This is a big blow to Eskom as it means it will have to pay more in interest to repay loans it takes to finance its capital projects, costs which will ultimately be borne by its South African customers. Because Eskom's credit rating is now considered "junk", institutions that could lend money to Eskom could now be prevented from doing so, which will make it more difficult for the utility to source cash.
Rand hits new 13-yr low on US rate hike hopes
Johannesburg - The rand fell to a new 13-year low against the dollar on Monday, after investors sold off emerging market currencies amid heightened expectations of an imminent interest rate hike in the United States.
The rand stumbled 0.7% to R12.1270 to the greenback, its softest level since early 2002, according to Thomson Reuters data.
Link: Rand hits new 13-yr low on US rate hike hopes | Fin24
05-13-2015, 07:14 PM #130
"Since 1994 at each of these conferences, the ANC has expressly recommitted itself to the National Democratic Revolution (NDR).
The communist party (SACP) still believe deeply in the need for a ‘vigorous and vigilant dictatorship by the people against the former dominating and exploiting classes’. They are also believe deeply in the importance of resisting any attempt to ‘restore white [read Western] colonialism’.
Understanding the NDR is the key to understanding South African policy thinking.
The ruling party constantly pushes for ever more State intervention in the economy – and ever greater dependency of people on the State. Here, the ANC has had great success. The current party leadership has now moved into high gear in implementing the NDR." - Frans Cronje
The ANC govt's actions: What lies beneath
- Frans Cronje | 29 April 2015
Frans Cronje says understanding the NDR is the key to understanding South African policy thinking
Comments by Frans Cronje to the Heritage Foundation, Washington DC, United States of America, April 29 2015.
The long march of the South African left: the ideological underpinnings of current government policy in South Africa
If you represent a large corporation in South Africa, or serve as a diplomatic representative of a leading Western government in my country, the past three to four years would have been difficult for you. You would have experienced a rising degree of official indifference – even hostility.
Policy in areas such as intellectual property rights and migration might have seemed almost calculated to undermine your interests in the country.
When you look at some key socio-economic indicators, this behavior seems even more peculiar. South Africa had GDP growth of just 1.5% last year. This year will not be much better. Its debt levels are escalating. The fiscal deficit now precludes the government from implementing many of its social policies. Half of the country’s young people are jobless, and socio-political instability is escalating. South Africa is down in its trade relationships (facing a trade deficit) with every major economy and region of the world except for non-oil countries in Africa and, very significantly, the United States.
From a Western perspective, you might think the South African government would be doing all in its power to attract fixed investment and expertise to grow the economy. Considering the enormous benefit South Africa draws from AGOA, you would think the government would have launched a diplomatic effort to ensure the long-term future of that agreement. But South Africa is not doing these things.
My role this afternoon is to try and help you understand what has gone wrong in South Africa and the implications for how its government makes policy.
A word on who I work for. I represent a leading, privately funded, South African think-tank - the IRR (Institute of Race Relations). We are one of very few market-friendly civil society organisations in Africa. Our track record over more than 80 years is without comparison both in terms of the rigor of our analysis and our unwavering support for political and economic freedom. We also emphasise the importance of South Africa establishing sound economic and diplomatic relations with Western nations.
So what is going on – why do those relations seem to be failing?
My point of departure is that the South African government - of today - is driven at its core not by the Constitution, nor by any of the formal economic policy blueprints it has adopted, but rather by the ideology of the National Democratic Revolution or the NDR. Understanding the NDR is the key to understanding South African policy thinking.
My senior colleague Dr Anthea Jeffery, one of South Africa’s top policy analysts, is the leading expert on the NDR and its implications.
Her argument is as follows:
The theory of the NDR has its origins in Lenin’s theory of imperialism, which claimed, in the early twentieth century, that Britain’s wealth was derived solely from exploiting the people in its colonies.
Adherents to the NDR see South Africa as ‘a colony of a special type’ in which foreign colonizers have become a permanent part of the population instead of going ‘home’.
In the late 1950s, much attention was given by the Soviet Union to the need for NDRs in former colonies that were newly independent. The aim was to move these new states away from market economies, bypass the capitalist stage of development as much as possible, and move steadily to socialism. At much the same time, the communist party in South Africa started to argue that wealth in South Africa had nothing to do with skills or technology but was derived solely from exploiting black people.
Over the following decades, as the communist party strengthened its dominance over the African National Congress (ANC) (the party that has governed South Africa since its first democratic election in 1994), communists became the key ideological drivers of the ideas underpinning the liberation struggle – and of the NDR.
Their influence was such that at its Morogoro Conference in 1969, for example, the ANC signed on to the ‘colonialism of a special type’ ideology and also committed itself to the NDR. It further asserted that the only way to correct ‘historical injustices’ within South Africa was through the destruction of existing economic and social relationships within the country.
This perspective became ever more deeply ingrained in ANC policy thinking in the last two decades of apartheid rule - I would say into the very early 1990s. While the NDR’s ideological influence over government waned after Mandela’s release and into the mid-2000s - something I will address in a moment - it never completely faded away and has shown a resurgence in the past decade.
How and why has this happened?
Every five years, the ANC holds national conferences to set the agenda for the following five years. Since 1994 at each of these conferences, the ANC has expressly recommitted itself to the NDR.
At the Mafikeng conference in 1997, for example, the party identified the key goal of the NDR as being ‘to liberate African from political and economic bondage’. Fair enough you would say - except that to achieve this end, it stressed the need to sever ‘the symbiotic link between capitalism and national oppression’, in order to ensure the ‘redistribution of wealth and income’;
Despite the forlornly dated tone of these conferences South Africa’s former deputy president (under Mandela), and later president, Thabo Mbeki, and his pragmatic finance minister, Trevor Manuel, - with the express backing of Mandela - had been an important countervailing force and done much to reduce communist influence within the government by centralizing policy making in the Presidency - at arm’s length from their party.
This was certainly the case over the decade that ran from the mid-1990s through to the mid-2000s and saw South Africa briefly exceed growth rates of 5% of GDP. However, the communist party (that governs in coalition with the ANC) was outraged and led a major campaign to unseat Mbeki and thus regain policy control over both the ANC and the South African government. This campaign reached its peak at the 2007 Polokwane conference where Thabo Mbeki was axed as ANC leader – forcing him, in time, to resign as president of South Africa.
The success of this campaign can be understood when you consider that four in ten cabinet ministers are now members of the communist party. Our trade minister – who took the lead on the AGOA negotiations – is a senior member. The communist party still believe deeply in the need for a ‘vigorous and vigilant dictatorship by the people against the former dominating and exploiting classes’. They are also believe deeply in the importance of resisting any attempt to ‘restore white [read Western] colonialism’.
What, then, are the current ideological/policy goals of the South African government?
* liberate South Africans from the exploitation still implicit in ‘colonialism of a special type’ – and of which Western investment is seen as both a symptom and an extension;
* ‘eliminate apartheid [ie existing] property relations’ through the ‘redistribution of wealth and income’, which implies a need to reduce or take control of Western interests/assets in South Africa;
* establish an ‘African hegemony’ in political, economic, and social life and so reject and limit Western influence;
The overarching goal is to push forward with the NDR because it:
* offers the most direct route to a socialist and then communist society.
Contrary to what you might therefore expect, SA’s current priority on economic policy is not to stimulate growth, but rather to bring about the redistribution of existing wealth from whites/colonists/imperialists/Western investors – either to the ANC’s own leading cadres or to the State itself.
Core natural resources – water, mineral wealth, and land – have already been vested in the State or are increasingly moving into State ownership. Ironically, though this is being done in the name of redress for past wrongs, all black South Africans are increasingly being barred from individual ownership of these key assets.
Instead of encouraging private investment and helping poor South Africans gain jobs, income, self-reliance and economic independence, a critical part of the current ANC’s strategy - to lead the country into socialism - is to constantly put forward the idea of a strong ‘developmental’ state, which will provide more and more people with cash grants, along with an expanding list of other ‘free’ goods and services. On this foundation, the ruling party constantly pushes for ever more State intervention in the economy – and ever greater dependency of people on the State.
Here, the ANC has had great success, for its position on the overriding importance of the developmental state is now commonly endorsed by most commentators in the media, civil society, and the wider political sphere. There is regular overt hostility to the profit motive and to private enterprise.
Too many people now buy into the seductive but ultimately paternalistic, and therefore offensive, notion - that underpins ‘development state’ thinking - that the poor can be helped by development projects, aid, and handouts. This is to enslave them to a life of material and later political dependency on the State – and plays perfectly into the menacing prospect of a socialist future. Their only salvation rests in the creation of an economic policy climate in which they can help themselves.
Understand the NDR and you will understand the ruling party and its communist allies. The collapse of the Mbeki-administration in 2008 (after Mbeki’s ouster as ANC president at Polokwane in 2007) broke the dam of internal resistance to the NDR. Hence, the current party leadership has now moved into high gear in implementing the NDR.
- Frans Cronje heads the IRR. Frans Cronje is a scenario planner and the CEO of the South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR). (Website: About Us â€” Institute of Race Relations)
Link: The ANC govt`s actions: What lies beneath - NEWS & ANALYSIS | Politicsweb
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