COSATU-SACP KZN PRESS BRIEFING
The South African Communist Party and COSATU in the province of kwaZulu Natal held a bilateral meeting on Monday 6th May 2012 which took place in Pinetown. The bilateral was attended by both Provincial Executive Committees of these two worker formations. The bilateral meeting was characterised by high unity, robust and vibrant debates of the two organisations in KwaZulu Natal. This was seen as the product of close and healthy working relationship between the two organisations. The meeting deliberated on a number of issues, nationally and provincially, particularly those that are daily impacting on the lives of the working class and the vulnerable.
Alliance Working relationship
The meeting raised concerns about a gap between alliance summit meetings at the national level that tend to provide space for wedge drivers. This is seen as not healthy situation for the alliance particularly when all three partners will be going to their national congresses. The meeting felt that the matters like e-toll and labour brokers would have been better handled should these formations had held alliance summit meetings more regularly.
The Party and COSATU highlighted the importance of strengthening of unity and cohesion within the alliance particularly in the light of massive attacks on the alliance and the government, waged through an anti-majoritarian liberal offensive by the opposition, the media and rightwing civil formations. The bilateral believe that there is an ideological third force at play targeting the government lead by the ANC.
However the bilateral believes that there is still a good alliance working relationship in the province of kwazulu Natal although it still needs to be translated into a regular programmatic relationship. It was noted that the ANC in the province is going for its conference in Newcastle at the end of this week, and the meeting wished the ANC to have a uniting conference that will continue to bring stability in the province.
The SACP and COSATU urged the ANC in the province at their conference to be exemplary in showing unity and cohesion and to come out with clear programmes of fighting unemployment, social and inequality and poverty. Also in their main focus should be the programme to fight crime and corruption. The ANC in KZN need to go to this conference to fight against and defeat slate politics and highlight service delivery issues.
Campaigns against e-tolling and labour brokers
The bilateral resolved that the struggle against e-tolling and labour brokers should not be abandoned but instead be intensified. We need to build on the unity shown during the recent march to extend these campaigns to involve other commodified services like public amenities and basic services. The worst e-tolling is around basic services like health, water and electricity.
That is where we need to intensify our fight against e-tolling. The meeting also believes that regulating labour broking is nothing else but regulating slavery, which means recognition of slavery but in a regulated form. The SACP and COSATU welcome the resignation of the CEO of SANRAL Nazeer Alli and demand a commission of inquiry into the e-toll project to establish its beneficiaries and the true cost to the state.
The meeting called for scrapping of the current petrol pricing model. The practice is seen as major cause of economic strain and stress that hit the poor hard. The current petrol pricing is favouring the rich and sentencing the working class to unemployment and poverty. For every rise in petrol price it takes away little food in the plate of the poor and vulnerable.
State of municipalities
The bilateral voice their dissatisfaction on the state of our municipalities in the province. The capacity of most municipalities has been deteriorating and need a very revolutionary turn around. But a major problem is that the municipalities are daily growing as source and centres for tenderpreneurs enrichment above service delivery particularly for the poor and vulnerable. Capital projects are usually conceived with an aim of ditching out tenders rather than on addressing service delivery. The forensic reports on Msunduze, Mandeni, Umzimkulu and the Manase report of Ethekwini Metro are cases in point.
There are also under reported cases of Ethekwini western aqueduct and a tender issued to a matriculant who happened to be a younger brother of the Senior deployee at Ubuhlebezwe and the state of finances at Ugu District Council. The recent decision by Ethekwini to opt for fines for the councillors who were implicated on acts of corruption are a clear sign of the problem faced by the government of Umsholozi. There is a false belief by some that comradeship is about ganging up against the rest.
The Ethekwini Ethics Committee ruling on the faulting councillors are clear living examples of the closing of ranks on corruption. This decision is nothing else but a condoning of acts of corruption. The SACP and Cosatu resolve to fight for the release of all forensic report to the public and demand the investigation around the awarding of R800 million rand tender to a matriculant.at Ubuhlebezwe.
Umgeni Water
The bilateral meeting learnt with regret the tensions that are brewing in Umgeni Water around the appointment of the Chief Executive. It is alleged the Board of Umgeni Water did all the necessities on appointing the Chief Executive and recommended a favoured candidate only to hear, four months later, that a very senior person is having other ideas and interest different from that of the board collective mandate.
We are not surprised when this influential senior person is now stalling or sabotaging the appointment of the preferred candidate in cahoots with another highly placed person in the Department of Water and Environmental Affairs. The bilateral meeting condemned any act by authorities that tend to turn the public institution into their personal fiefdoms.
Our experience in such conduct and behaviour are that they are informed by what is called institutional capture where a state or public asset is turned into milking cow of the tenderpreneurs. We are highly suspicious of the conduct these Senior placed individuals looking at recent decision of Ethekwini council to strip Umgeni Water of its main plant Durban Heights, the economic modelling of the building of the envisaged Spring Grove Dam and the planned water purification plant in UThukela River.
The board of Umgeni Water should be mindful of the fact that such conduct do impact negatively on efficiency of the organization and water services delivery of the province. The institution has been actually brought into disrepute. SACP and COSATU the adherence to the Water Services Act on the appointment of the Chief Executive and therefore demand the immediate finalisation of the appointment as per decision of the board.
Proposed DA march to the offices of COSATU
The meeting was briefed of the planned march by the DA to the offices of COSAU on the youth wage subsidy. The SACP and COSATU take this march as a direct attack on the working class by the party of the bosses.
The DA march should be taken as an act of extreme provocation and an act of aggression unprecedented by the bosses against the workers. The COSATU and the SACP in the province therefore agreed to march and picket at the offices of the DA in the province in order to appeal to the DA to refrain from starting an open war with the workers.
In conclusion the meeting also deliberated on the state of the justice and security cluster in the province. The security and justice structures in the province can be said to be in very unstable situation KwaZulu Natal is one province where you cannot not risk an unstable situation SACP and COSATU in the province call for a national intervention to avert the situation to slide into a worst scenario.
A special task team from national need to be appointed to investigate high profile murders that has taken place particularly in the last five years, immediate appointment of the head of NPA and Crime Intelligence in the province. The handling of the appointment of judges in the province provides a lot of discomfort.
Statement issued by Themba Mthembu, SACP KwaZulu-Natal provincial secretary and Zet Luzipo, COSATU provincial secretary, May 9 2012
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