Comrade Gwede Mantashe
Secretary General
African National Congress
Luthuli House
Marshalltown - Johannesburg

Dear comrade Secretary General

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) salutes the African National Congress (ANC) on the occasion of its ninety-eight years anniversary celebrations. This makes the ANC the oldest liberation movement in the continent. This is a milestone achievement and we want to take this opportunity to congratulate all the members and supporters of the ANC past and present.

For 98 long years the ANC in the most unselfish and exemplary manner united our people irrespective of their historic differences in a single struggle for the liberation of our people from colonialism and apartheid.

During this period it earned respect not only from those directly benefiting from its heroism and leadership but from the entire globe. Through struggle it produced countless, and only the finest, revolutionaries who are celebrated the world over. Today the ANC is a beacon of hope of all humankind.

The ANC is the disciplined force of the left. Whilst a broad-church liberation movement it has for decades earned its stripes as a pro-worker and pro-poor movement leading all forces for a fundamental change of our society.

In this message we shall highlight some of the most pressing challenges our country face. As we begin this the year of working together for effective service to the people, the workers of our country, and indeed all those marginalised by the capitalist mode of production, look upon the ANC to change this situation.

COSATU summed up 2008 by the famous opening lines of A Tale of Two Cities: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times". The worst of times were represented by the devastating economic crisis, which continued its rampage throughout the world and hit South African workers very hard.

Unemployment has shot from 23.6% of the labour force in the second quarter, to 24.5% in the third quarter of 2009. The more realistic expanded definition of unemployment, which includes those who have given up looking for work, climbed from 32.5% to 34.4% in the same period. This means that a staggering 4.702 million South Africans are now without work, way above the levels in any comparable country. A growing number of the employed are employed as casual labour often exploited by the human trafficking labour brokers.

The crisis has devastated manufacturing industry and has raised the spectre of the complete deindustrialisation of the economy with no escape from the colonial economic status as a source of raw materials and cheap labour.

The crisis has increased the already massive levels of poverty and sparked off angry community service delivery protests in one community after another.

The blatant levels of inequality undoubtedly fuel these protests, as South Africa today is officially the world leader in terms of inequality. Poor families living in shacks with no sanitation or running water can see the mansions of the wealthy, with their gardens and swimming pools hidden behind high security walls just a few kilometers away.

Making the communities even angrier is the continuing evidence of corruption, especially and sadly when the culprits are those who are supposed to be representing them.

Batho Pele remains a distant dream for millions of the poor who depend on the state for the necessities of life, yet still find hopelessly under-resourced and under-staffed public services. Despite the dedicated work of the majority of public servants, a minority of lazy, corrupt or rude staff can lead to the absolute opposite of ‘service'. COSATU has invited government to join a new campaign to establish a new revolutionary culture of service to the public among all public servants.

The HIV/Aids pandemic continues to sweep through the country, claiming thousands of lives, with new infections at 23 times the global average. Thank goodness we now have a President, a Minister and a government that fully appreciate the seriousness of the catastrophe, and we shall be pulling out all the stops to take forward the government campaign to reduce the rate of infections by 50% and get ARV treatment to 80% of those who need it.

These are some of our challenges and we know that the ANC does have workable plans to address all these challenges. For 98 years the ANC has not failed our people and we know as we move towards the centenary celebrations our hopes are pinned on the ANC manifesto which are based on sound and progressive ANC and Alliance policies we have developed together.

These remain our challenges and not something else. When we talk about defense of the working class gains we mean ensuring that the ANC continue to focus on the concerns of the majority of our people.

This should be our preoccupation and not some imaginary enemies amongst us.

May the ANC continue to grow from strength to strength and may it have another 98 years of unequalled leadership of our society and the Alliance.

Yours comradely

Zwelinzima Vavi

General Secretary

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