ANNUAL EVALUATION BY THE FF PLUS OF THE ANC'S PERFORMANCE

The FF Plus has for the seventh consecutive year undertaken an evaluation (report card) of the ANC's performance according to specifically those issues which from the point of view of the average FF Plus voter, is important. The issues which were evaluated are -

• combating crime

• administration of justice

• local government

• education

• language and cultural rights

• economic growth and job creation

In summary the following marks were awarded:

Combating of Crime - 4
Administration of Justice - 3
Local Government - 2
Education - 5
Language and Cultural Rights - 4
Economic growth - 4

It therefore appears from the above that the ANC from the viewpoint of the average FF Plus voter this year obtained a meagre average of 37% for its performance with regards to its policies

The FF Plus remains committed to a South Africa which offers room for all who live in it. The party will in 2010 - as in all the years before - remain committed to the constructive initiation of talks where it is possible and the mobilising of the opposition and resistance where it has to be.

Complete evaluation herewith.

DR. PIETER MULDER

FF Plus's annual evaluation of the ANC's performance

Introduction

The FF Plus has for the seventh consecutive year undertaken an evaluation (report card) of the ANC's performance according to specifically those issues which from the point of view of the average FF Plus voter, is important. The issues which were evaluated are -

• combating crime
• administration of justice
• local government
• education
• language and cultural rights
• economic growth and job creation

The allocation of marks were made by members of the FF Plus from across the whole country.

The party has tried to refrain from the evaluation of persons and rather evaluated the experiencing of the government's policies as a whole.

The report card does give itself out to be objective, but it is an accurate summary of the average FF Plus voter's experience of government policy.

The governments "examination results" for 2009 are explained in more detail below.

1. Combating crime

Combating crime is a constitutional duty of which the political responsibility lies with the Minister and government (section 205 (3) & 206). If a government fails in this regard, the state fails because the state then becomes a criminal country.

Although it appears as if Minister Nathi Mthetwa has a better grasp of the extent of crime given some of his public statements, his performance will in the final instance no be measured by statements but rather by the actions and the results flowing from them.

A positive aspect is that the new public statements by Mtehtwa send a strong message to criminals that they will be confronted by the full force of the Police. What is however disconcerting, is that some members of the Police are trigger- happy and kill innocent civilians and children.

The reason for the mark is as follows:

The latest crime statistics (raw figures) which indicate that murder (-1,8%), attempted murder (-2,6%) and ordinary robberies (-8,9%) have declined, could create a false confidence about crime in South Africa . The murder figure is now 37,3 per 100 000 of the population where it had been 38,6 per 100 000 previously, but the world average for murder is 5 per 100 000 of the population. In South Africa 50 people are still being killed every day and murder is still nearly eight times higher than the world average.

Burglaries at residential homes are extremely worrying and have increased by 27,3% (18 438) according to the latest crime statistics. If it is taken into account that robberies at residential homes had increased in 2007/2008 by 13,5% (14 481) and in 2006/2007 by 26,4% (12 761), robberies at residential houses have in the past three years increased by 54,2%.

From the previous reporting year 2007/2008 until the present date, robberies at residential homes have increased with 27,3%. Car hi-jackings have in the past three years increased every year and again increased by 5% now. Over a period of three years, car hi-jackings have increased by 16,3%. This type of crime threatens the public's lives and the public is therefore not safe in their own homes and on their way to work. That explains the public's view that crime has increased and has gotten out of control.

Racism of, especially, black against white people in the SAPS is becoming an increasing source of concern. Incidents where Police officials act in a racist and prejudiced way against white people and refuse to open their cases, are becoming a more common appearance. The most well known reported example is that of police constables, i.e., Const. Mokwena and Const. Mafabatho, of the Odendaalsrus Police Station who called a white farmer a "white dog" and said that "all white dogs in South Africa will be killed". (Volksblad 8 January 2009).

Increasing incidents of racism against white police members in the SAPS is causing these officers not being able to function properly and they are overburdened with case loads of other colleagues who are incompetent. Promotion opportunities for white SAPS members are still very scarce.

Various questions of the Freedom Front Plus in Parliament are still not being answered, for example the question as to how many members of every race group were promoted to officers and the fact that statistics about farm murders are no longer available separately.

The most controversial and unforgivable policy decision is the decision of the Police in Limpopo that statements in that province will in future only be taken down in English. The most controversial comments are those of Deputy Minister, Fakile Mbalula, i.e., that the killing of innocent people will be inevitable and that in the striving of Police officers to fulfil their duties, innocent civilians will be killed. The message being sent out by this is that innocent lives are worth nothing and that Police are given indemnity for irresponsible trigger-happiness.

The events as described above, shows that the Minister and government still have a lot to do to combat crime in order for civilians to feel safer in South Africa .

The FF Plus's allocation of a mark to the ANC government for combating crime is 4 out of 10 due to the positive comments of the Minister.

2. The Administration of Justice

The independence of the courts and the separation of powers between the Executive and Judicial authorities is some of the most important building blocks of a mature democracy. From various comments of President Zuma and the Minister of Justice, Mr. Jeff Radebe, it is clear that transformation of the courts and the judicial system is a priority for the government. Because it is unclear what the government means exactly with these statements, it sets of the alarm bells. It is therefore important that an opposition party such as the FF Plus monitors it and evaluates it on a continuous basis.

The following decisions of the minister and his department have had an influence on the mark which has been awarded to him:

The appointment of advocate Menzi Simelane as the new National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP):

The appointment took place under a cloud of suspicion as a result of the incriminating findings in the Ginwala report. The report indicated that adv. Simelane was guilty of misrepresentation, as he refused to reveal the letter of the previous Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development addressed to advocate Vusi Pikoli (not to prosecute the National Commissioner of the SAPS - Mr. Jackie Selebi) as well as adv. Pikoli's reply to it, to the Ginwala Commission. The Public Services Commission also found that a disciplinary hearing of against adv. Simelane should be heard. Although Minister Radebe has now indicated that adv. Simelane did not have the opportunity to defend himself before the Ginwala Commission or at the following Public Services Commission it would have been in the interest of the administration of justice and of the broader public, if adv. Simelane was not appointed as he appears, at that stage, not to have been a suitable and competent person with the necessary integrity.

What is the most disconcerting however, is the letter which Simelane, as the Director General of Justice, had at the time written to Adv. Pikoli with instructions not to arrest Selebi. This boils down to a serious abuse of powers and is a clear indication that Simelane is not to be trusted to act impartially as the NDPP. His own comments during the Ginwala Commission that, according to him, the prosecuting authority has to report to the Minster, supports the fact that he is too prejudiced to act constitutionally objectively. In addition there are enough other candidates who could have been considered.

The appointment of Chief Justice Sandile Ngcobo:

The appointment was a less controversial appointment, and many South Africans, especially amongst opposition members, gave a sigh of relief that chief justice Hlope was not appointed.  In the evaluation it has to be counted on the positive side. Judge Ngcobo has proven experience and he has, on a encouraging note, already in his acceptance speech in Parliament indicated that their should be a proper division between powers of the courts and the executive authority. Time will however tell how wise the appointment is in reality.

Senseless transformation which becomes mere head-counting:

It is clear that the Ministry still wants to follow an aggressive policy of transformation at the cost of quality administration of justice. The Minister appears to still confuse transformation with access to the courts. The latter objective's call is that of effectiveness and not a mere counting of heads of black judges. The Minister, just like his predecessor, is also participating in the process of the ruin of the administration of justice.

The diluting of magistrates salary inputs:

It appears that the views of magistrates themselves with regard to their conditions of employment and salaries are not communicated clearly by the Minister of Justice. The magistrates, who have to do their work under very poor and difficult circumstances, are added to those of the High Court judges in the evaluation of their needs by the Ministry. The Minister should in future give more attention to the needs of magistrates on an individual basis to make the administration of justice more effective.

In the light of the above, and especially due to the he Simelane debacle, the FF Plus regarded it as reasonable to award a mark of 3 out of 10 to the Minster of Justice.

3. Local Government

Local government is the level of government which affects the public directly. It is on this level where the public can best judge the government of the day and it is at this level where the government performs at its worst. Service delivery at local government level is in nearly every municipality in South Africa busy collapsing. The government is closing its eyes to this chronic situation.

The awful circumstances at municipal level are the result of:

Inadequate infrastructure:

Towns and cities' infrastructure were planned by engineers to deliver services, such as water, electricity, refuse etc. to a specific number of people. With the informal urbanisation which has been taking place without any control, this infrastructure has become totally inadequate. The government has done nothing to support municipalities to upgrade and develop their infrastructure.

Group municipalities:

The inclusion of smaller municipalities in so-called larger municipalities has now proven to be a failure. It has negatively influenced the personal element of service delivery. The FF Plus is of the opinion that smaller municipalities, with larger local character will be able to deliver better services.

Affirmative Action:

The racially based forced affirmative action has as a consequence that personnel who do not possess the required knowledge are being appointed in municipalities.

Poor financial management:

Hardly any of the municipalities in South Africa have an effective treasury department. The positions in municipalities' treasury departments are being filled and large salaries are being paid, but the ability to effectively manage finances does not exist.

The best municipal manager can not effectively manage a municipality if he/she does not receive the support of effective financial management. It is also furthermore impossible for municipal councils to sensibly plan and take decisions if there is uncertainty about the true financial position of the municipalities.

Poor service delivery is the direct consequence of ineffective financial management.

The majority of municipalities can not draw up their own financial statements. Consultancy firms are being used and paid to do it. The implication is that the taxpayer and service consumer are paying twice for the same service. They finance the salaries of officials and as the officials are not capable to do their work, they have to also pay millions of rand to consultants to do the work of officials.

The outstanding debts of municipalities in South Africa already amount to nearly R40 million. Municipalities do not possess the capacity and knowledge to collect the outstanding debt and to manage it.

Corruption:

The chaos which exist within municipalities, create favourable circumstances for corruption. Corruption at municipalities is experienced in particular in the tender administration of municipalities.

It is alleged that up to a third of senior officials' qualifications are falsified. The FF Plus is of the opinion that such serious allegations should be investigated forensically.

The FF Plus is convinced that the if the ANC government and the president is really serious about solving the problems at municipal level and want to ensure sustainable effective local governments, they can no longer ignore the disconcerting circumstances at local government level.

The FF Plus can at this stage not give more than 2 out of 10 for the government's management of local government issues.

4   Education

Education had its high and low points this year. The lowest point in education since the FF Plus started its evaluation of the ANC government's accomplishments/failures in December 2008, can be summed up as follows:

The delay in announcing the matric results at the end of 2008:

Many matriculants were unsettled because they did not receive their matric results in time to register at tertiary education institutions.

Mpumalanga is the province which rendered the poorest service in this regard.

The continued targeting of single medium Afrikaans schools:

With the opening of schools in January 2008 a few English speaking black learners arrived at High School Hans Strydom to be educated in English. Per chance the television crews were present to broadcast the affair. The event did not take place spontaneously, but was done calculatingly with the objective of having the last remaining single medium Afrikaans schools phased out.

Although the school governing board of the High School Ermelo won their appeal case to have the school retain its status as a single medium Afrikaans school, there was a sting in the pronouncement of the court. It was decided by the court that the Education Department had followed an incorrect procedure. The outcome thus is that should the correct procedure be followed, all single medium Afrikaans school's language policies could be altered. That would be serious discrimination against Afrikaans speaking learners.

Rays of hope (highs) with regards to education:

The only ray of hope with regard to education is the comments made by the new Minster of Basic Education. Her honesty to acknowledge that teachers have to fulfil too many administrative duties, was soothing to the ear. According to her, teachers belong in the classroom.

President Zuma himself spoke some positive words about the ill-discipline of teachers and learners and emphasised that teachers have to be on their post every day and that learners should do their homework.

The announcement at last that OBE will be done away with, was the best news for teachers in many years. A whole generation of learners suffered an injustice with this education model which was enforced in a stubborn way.

With regard to higher education, Afrikaans as a medium of instruction is still under pressure. Traditional Afrikaans Universities should place more pressure on government to retain their language status. Afrikaans students, Afrikaans parents and Afrikaans organisations and business people who donate money to Afrikaans Universities, should also have their voices heard in this regard. The new Minister of Higher Education with regard to this issue is not encouraging.

We therefore award a point of five out of ten and hope the promises of the Minister will be realised.

We allocate a mark of 5 out of 10 and hope that the promises of the Minister will materialise.

5. Language and Cultural Rights

With the adoption of the Constitution in 1996, certain institutions of democracy were created in order to help protect and develop various issues which were at the time viewed as problems. One of these institutions was the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Language, Cultural and Religious Communities (in brief known as the Section 185 commission).

185 Commission

This commission, which was supposed to protect the rights of minorities, was in the past year very quiet and totally absent in all issues which had affected Language, Cultural or Religious communities.

The failure of the relevant institution has to be lain at the door of the ANC. At present the political will is apparently lacking to incorporate South Africa 's rich cultural diversity into the democracy in a sensible manner. The Asmal Commission furthermore recommended that the Section 185 Commission should be phased out over a period of time and its duties, together with that of the Pan South African Language Board are taken over by the Human Rights Commission. The phasing out of this institution is a further symptom of this.

Geographical names

Nothing has come of the consultation process for the reaching of a national consensus about geographic names which was set as a prospect for the future by President Zuma in his first speech in Parliament. Controversial and insensitive name changes of towns were hastily and without any real consultation forced through in Mpumalanga and in Pretoria the FF Plus had to approach the court to have over-hastily changes of historical names slowed down or stopped. Nothing has come of the proposal of creating a joint set of rules for the changing of names.

National Language Act

A further example of this ignoring of South Africa 's diversity is the government's unwillingness to accept a national language act. Section 6 of the Constitution demands that such a law is accepted. Thirteen years after the Constitution had been accepted in 1996, there is still not such an act. The implication of this is that English is still being promoted as the medium of communication to the detriment of Afrikaans and the other nine national languages.

When Mr. Cerneels Lourens, from the Association of Legal Practitioners for Afrikaans this year threatened to force the government through a court application to accept a national language law, Mr. Themba Wakahe, the director general of the department of Arts and Culture said that his department wants time until June 2011 to "prepare" a draft bill. After 2011 it could still take up to two years before the Bill finally becomes law - nearly twenty years after the acceptance of the 1996 Constitution. It is unacceptable and points to a contempt for the Constitution's stipulation on this issue as well as an unwillingness to recognise the reality of South Africa's diversity.

The FF Plus awards the ANC government a mark of 4/10 in this regard.

6. Economic growth and job creation

To declare the international economic crisis of 2008/09 as the only scapegoat for the poor financial situation in the country, is factually wrong. With this the FF Plus does not deny the influence of the international economic crisis on other countries, but it should not be made a smoke screen. The Freedom Front Plus is of the opinion that every country's government should take full responsibility for economic growth in such a country.

South Africa's growth rate declined from 7.1% in January 2007 to its lowest level in July 2009 of -2,6% but has in the past two months turned around and shown a slight positive growth rate.

Unemployment has since 1994 until 2009 increased from 1 988 000 people to 4 125 000 people which is an increase of 107,5%. Of the government's promises of 500 000 jobs very little has materialized.

The government continuous to punish consumers with extra-ordinarily high electricity rate increases. This is a direct consequence of the government's slackness in allowing Eskom to maintain and develop infrastructure.

The government's practice to fix the fuel prices on a monthly basis has now in stormy international circumstances exploded in the government's face. It has sent food prices rocketing and increased production costs to such an extent that the food shortages amongst the poorest part of the population have increased drastically.

South Africa still has relative growth forecasts but it has to be managed sensibly through discerning regulating. To make use of it, saving alone will not be enough.

Productivity will have to be increased dramatically. Affirmative action and black economic empowerment are luxuries which the economy can ill afford in difficult circumstances and have to be reduced dramatically.

With the implosion of the Lehman Brothers in New York on 14 September 2008, a world wide negative chain reaction started. The negative reaction was much worse than that of 9 November 2001 when the Twin Towers came down. If the American government had foreseen the implosion of the Lehman Brothers beforehand, they would have been able to prevent it. If a bank implodes after one hundred and eighty five years, it has to have a negative economic fall-out. Five trillion US dollars (R37 trillion) worth of wealth was destroyed in one day.

Hundreds of thousands of people became unemployed overnight. It had an extremely negative influence on the world economy. World production decreased and unemployment increased as a result of these events.

Financial markets in the developed world are today at a lower level than before 14 September 2008. In the developing world financial markets are better of than before 14 September 2008. In South Africa the level of financial markets at present are the same as before 14 September 2008. This is positive but in relation to other developing counties it is not positive enough. The reason for this is that foreign investors are getting mixed signals from the government.

For example:

One government official says that foreign exchange controls are going to be tightened while another says that foreign exchange controls will be loosened. Such conflicting comments create confusion with foreign investors. The government's control and management of foreign funds in the recent past also do not create confidence with international markets. The key word for economic growth is confidence. Confidence does not fall in one's lap, it has to be earned.

The FF Plus is of the opinion that the following ten factors are important to create confidence:

• The government's economic policy
• Healthy financial management
• Political stability
• Independent judicial system/judiciary
• Service delivery at local level
• The prevention of corruption (illegal personal enrichment)
• Positive growth rate and acceptable inflation levels
• Responsible usage of resources
• Responsible protection of the environment
• Respect for individuals - and groups

The Freedom Front Plus can not but to award a failure mark of 4 out of 10 for the Government's economic policy.

Conclusion

In summary the following marks were awarded:

Combating of Crime - 4

Administration of Justice - 3

Local Government - 2

Education - 5

Language and Cultural Rights - 4

Economic growth - 4

It therefore appears from the above that the ANC from the viewpoint of the average FF Plus voter this year obtained a meagre average of 37% for its performance with regards to its policies.

The FF Plus remains committed to a South Africa which offers room for all who live in it. The party will in 2010 - as in all the years before - remain committed to the constructive initiation of talks where it is possible and the mobilising of the opposition and resistance where it has to be.

DR. PIETER MULDER

Leader: FF Plus

9 December 2009

Issued by Dr Pieter Mulder, leader of the Freedom Front Plus, December 9 2009

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