Numsa Press Statement on its Rejection and Publication of a Comparative Analysis of the NDP

"We have suffered more than just national humiliation. Our people are deprived of their due in the country's wealth; their skills have been suppressed amid poverty and starvation has been their life experience. The correction of these centuries-old economic injustices lies at the inner core of our national aspirations" (ANC, Morogoro Conference, 1969)

A. Our understanding of the historic mission of the struggle for liberation in South Africa

At Numsa, like many of the formations of the Mass Democratic Movement and those specifically in the ANC led Alliance, we recognise that the struggle for freedom and democracy in South Africa is the continuing struggle to end national, gender and class oppression and exploitation. Anything short of this is a continuation of the same centuries old system of national, gender and class oppression and exploitation by other means!

The struggle to end national, gender and class oppression and exploitation is the essence of our National Democratic Revolution.

B. Our perspectives on the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) and the Freedom Charter (FC)

At Numsa we have consistently maintained that the white racist and colonial capitalist economic foundation of South Africa needs to be destroyed if the most immediate needs of all the people of South Africa are to be met: the establishment of a truly non racial and democratic South Africa. To do this requires fundamental change to take place in the South African economy and society.

We are convinced that in the immediate post 1994 term, the full and radical implementation of the Freedom Charter offers the best possibility to give birth to the truly new and democratic South Africa free from racist colonial oppression and its cruel consequences of mass poverty, unemployment and extreme inequalities.

Such a radical and revolutionary restructuring of South African economy and society is what we call the National Democratic Revolution. Obviously, the core element of this Revolution is the liberation of Black people in general and Africans in particular, from the more than three centuries of racist colonial oppression. Only this can form the only true basis for real national unity and democracy in South Africa.

The National Democratic Revolution cannot be achieved without the democratic forces winning full state power and securing ownership of and control over our national wealth. It is impossible to win the struggle for national liberation without securing ownership and control of national wealth.

In short, the National Democratic Revolution we fight for is the radical and full implementation of the Freedom Charter. Any partial measures merely tinker with the existing racist colonial situation of the majority of South Africans, and protects the vested social and economic interest, thereby prolonging and sustaining the South African white racial capitalist system.

All our policy engagements post 1994 are informed by this perspective, and, as a Socialist trade union, our struggle for a Socialist South Africa.

Thus our views on the NDP are derived from this perspective, a perspective that seeks to advance the aims and objectives of a Freedom Charter based National Democratic Revolution, and for Socialism.

C. Numsa and the struggle for a Socialist Republic of South Africa

Numsa is a conscious working class formation, a red trade union, a socialist union. No one should expect it to welcome and embrace ideas that entrench the power of private capital at the expense of the working class, whomever and wherever these may be.

Further, we remain convinced that a radical NDR based on the Freedom Charter offers the best possibility for winning the most thoroughgoing freedom and democracy for all the people of South Africa, and for creating conditions for moving the country to a truly fully democratic and egalitarian society, to a Socialist South Africa.

Numsa unapologetically fights for such a South Africa!

D. NUMSA and the NPC and its NDP, and the DA

At Numsa we are very clear about the origins of the NPC in the working class dissatisfaction with post 1994 South Africa, among others:

• The adoption of neo-liberalism by the ANC government;
• The abandoning of the RDP;
• The sidelining of the Alliance in policy formulation and implementation;
• The dominance of Treasury in economic development planning and implementation; and
• The absence of a nationwide plan and planning framework to take the country out of Colonialism of A Special Type.

We have consistently raised the structural matter of the relationship of the NPC to the ANC government and to the ANC itself, and we have rejected the effort to place the NPC above both the ANC government and the ANC itself - as some kind of "supper meritocratic policy thinker" of post 2007 South Africa!

We reject the NPC false attempt at being non ideological when in fact the N PC's outputs clearly betray a neoliberal bent. This has in fact been proven in the comparative analysis we offer hereunder.

Numsa noted that the NPC in its Diagnostics of Symptoms merely diagnosed the symptoms, rather than the root cause, of our development challenges: the underlying Apartheid and colonial character of our economy and its social relations. It follows logically from this faulty and false analysis that their NDP cannot be a correct response to the challenges facing South Africa.

We reject the migration of Treasury officials into the NPC. These officials were central to burying the hopes and aspirations of millions of South Africans under their neoliberal management of national finances.

We find that the NDP fails to outline how finance capital will be subordinated to industrial capital, and thus expansion of the real economy, creation of decent jobs and promotion of equality and elimination of poverty.

We conclude, among other things that:

i. Both the Diagnostic Report and the NDP are based on a false, theoretically weak analytical foundation - in a thinly veiled attempt to conceal the underlying false neoliberal assumptions about South Africa and its development challenges.

ii. We find that the NDP is not anchored around the dynamic to destroy "Colonialism of a Special Type" (CST) post 1994, in South Africa, and thus it easily joins the many false promises of development in South Africa post 1994.

iii. Thus we suggest that everything about the NPC needs to be redone in order to define properly what it is, where it must be located and what it must do, in post 1994 South Africa.

iv. Of course we reject the NDP as not being rooted in the historic mission of the Liberation Struggle in South Africa and for being anti the Freedom Charter, anti working class interests and ultimately not in the best interests of the VAST MAJORITY of South Africans. It is a document that protects the historic and vested white monopoly and imperialists capitalist interests in South Africa, and presents this defence as a basis for the gradual evolution of a "New South Africa".

There is clearly an "emerging, moderate non-racial centre" in South Africa post 1994, which has its ideological origins in the DA and now has solid roots in the ANC itself, hence the "adoption" of the NDP by the ANC in Mangaung, of which the DA aptly says:

"The adoption of the DA'S vocabulary throughout the NDP is striking. It borrows much of the same analytical framework that underpins our own political philosophy - the ‘open, opportunity society for all."

E. Specific Problems in the Content of the NDP

1. The NDP Leaves Intact Existing Patterns of Ownership and Control of the Economy

NUMSA moves from the perspective that: "In our country...it is inconceivable for liberation to have meaning without a return of the wealth of the land to the people as a whole. It is therefore a fundamental feature of our strategy that victory must embrace more than formal political democracy. To allow the existing economic forces to retain their interests intact is to feed the root of racial supremacy and does not represent even the shadow of liberation".

State-ownership or nationalisation is not part of the NDP, this means the Freedom Charter's call that "the mineral wealth beneath the soil, the banks and monopoly industries shall be transferred to the ownership of the people as a whole" will not be realised.

NUMSA re-iterates the resolutions of the 9th Congress of COSATU which say that:

a. We must bring back the fundamental thrust of the Freedom Charter and the RDP on nationalisation of key and strategic industries.

b. Government must return to the Freedom Charter demands for the nationalisation of monopoly industries like mines and the banks

c. To campaign within the Alliance and society at large for the nationalisation of economic assets in key economic sectors such as minerals, telecommunications, petrochemical, etc.

The 10th Congress of COSATU further noted that "the Freedom Charter propagates state ownership of the commanding heights of the economy and control of the private sector for the benefit of the people". Even the 11 Congress of COSATU re-iterated this perspective.

That is why we say the NDP leaves intact the power relations that define Colonialism of a Special Type, which is the domination of black people in general, African people in particular, by a class of white South African monopoly capitalists together with their foreign allies.

The effect of this domination is to sustain the material privileges of white people in South Africa at the expense of, and on the basis of super-exploitation of, the black working class. White monopoly domination and its foreign allies also continues to suppress the emergence of a genuine industrial capitalist class among Africans through its control of value- chains, it suppresses the talents of the African professional strata, especially the young professionals and intellectuals. We see this in the consistent and depressing annual reports of the Employment Equity Commission.

The NDP therefore does not advance Freedom Charter and working class perspectives on ownership and control of the economy.

The NDP:

a) Says nothing about ownership and control of well-known strategic monopoly industries such as SASOL, Arcelor-Mittal, the Banks, the Mines and others.

b) Says nothing about the following:

a. State Bank

b. State pharmaceutical company

c. Private ownership of the South African Reserve Bank

d. State Mining Company

In the NDP, BEE remains the primary vehicle to deracialised and democratise ownership and control, no plan to broaden ownership and control, and no plan to change the class character of ownership and control of the economy.

All these mean that the continued concentration and centralisation of economic power in the hands of a few people, which has been a characteristic economic feature of colonialism of a special type, continues.

2. The NDP Calls for a Minimalist Role of the State

The state will play a minor role, a role which is limited to administering tenders to the highest bidder. Private capital will be responsible for putting concrete on the ground whilst the state's role is to raise debt and to collect taxes to pay to private capital, which will be responsible for the actual building of infrastructure.

The state will rely on the private sector in all its infrastructure programmes through:

1. Private public partnerships.

2. Financing infrastructure development from the private sector which depends on unregulated financial market forces, rather than through progressive taxation, imposition of exchange controls and prescribed assets.

3. Concessioning of ports and rail lines to private sector investors, this particularly applies to Transnet. This is to weaken the power of the state over the transport sector and to elevate market forces. This is privatisation of public transport, which will severely limit the capacity of Transnet to connect small and rural towns to the mainstream of the economy.

4. Eskom is to be broken up into pieces. The distribution network will be separated from the power-stations, in order to introduce Independent Power Producers. This is liberalisation of the electricity sector with a view to weaken the power of the state over the energy sector. This is privatisation-allowing capital to make money from this strategic developmental sector.

3. The NDP Calls for Labour Market De-regulation

The NDP calls for:

1. Labour market flexibility, like GEAR, but now it is called "a responsive labour market'.

2. De-regulation of the market:

a) Reduce the regulatory burdens for SMMEs,

b) Amend the Labour Relations Act in order to ease hiring and firing of workers, all appeals should be on substantive and not procedural grounds.

c) Extend probationary periods to 6 months, during probation, ordinary unfair dismissal protection does not apply

d) Managers (and professionals), who earn above R300 000 per annum, must not have access to CCMA

e) Wage flexibility, especially for new entrants into the labour market-youth wage subsidy helps to reduce entry-level wages for employers

f) Do not ban labour brokers, they are a source of employment for more than 900 000 people, rather regulate them

g) Give a subsidy to labour brokers (placement companies) to identify, prepare and place matric graduates in work opportunities

3. The NDP calls for the privatisation of the Expanded Public Works Programme (so- called non-state sector expanded public works).

The National Development Plan has no plan to address the following:

1. The apartheid wage gap (race, gender and class)

2. The slow pace of workplace transformation, as annually reported by the Employment Equity Reports (e.g. promotions, career-path, etc.)

3. The limited skills development and training of black people in the workplace, and the prevalence of training that is not linked to career-paths and promotions

4. The suppression of talents of young black, especially African, graduates in the private sector and in some institutions in the public sector, especially SUEs

5. The excessive executive pay in the South African corporate sector

In addition the National Development Plan does not have a plan to ensure that:

6. Men and women of all races shall receive equal pay for equal work;

7. There shall be a:

a. forty-hour working week,

b. national minimum wage,

c. paid annual leave and sick leave for all workers,

d. and maternity leave on full pay for all working mothers;

The labour market reforms of the ATDP espouse one of the core pillars of neo-liberalism-Labour Market De-regulation aimed at "breaking down" trade unions, COSATU in particular, which is now seen as the barrier to job-creation!

4. The NDP has no Plan to Support Industrialisation, No Plan for Manufacturing!

The NDP proposes to stimulate manufacturing through, amongst others [NDP-2030 Vision, p.127]:

1.1 Ensuring a growing share of products that are dynamic, and have potential for domestic linkages. However, the NDP does not explain how this will be done. There are no policy tools that are specified, such as taxes and subsidies, preferential financing to targeted sectors, etc.

1.2 Intensifying research and development support for product development, innovation and commercialisation. The NDP does not specify how this will be done. What tools will be deployed to guide research and development to support manufacturing?

1.3 Exploring approaches to buffering manufacturers from the effects of currency volatility. What does this mean, explore? It means the NDP does not have concrete measures to deal with currency volatility because they still have to "explore' instead of imposing taxes on short-term capital flows, taxing financial speculators, and imposing exchange controls.

1.4 Strengthening network infrastructure and skills supply, and bringing administered prices under control. The NDP does not explain how it will bring down administered prices, since the NDP itself says it wants to use tariffs to fund infrastructure, like e-tolls.

The NDP makes a passing reference to beneficiation, but no set of minerals is identified as strategic for local beneficiation. In addition, the NDP talks down beneficiation, saying it is "energy intensive" and involves "trade-offs". What the NPC does not address is the fact that the country suffers from the trade-deficit because it imports finished manufactured products, and exports low value-added raw minerals. This structural problem will never be resolved unless a long-term plan to beneficiate is in place. By the way, we also reject the so-called beneficiation strategy by the Department of Mineral Resources, for further details, consult our study on Metallic Mineral Beneficiation.

In the NDP, domestic industries that are likely to create jobs are construction, office cleaning and hairdressing. No vision of domestic employment in high-tech manufacturing that will arise on the basis of our mineral processing and value- addition. We view this as an insult to the industrial proletariat.

5. The NDP's Infrastructure Plan Reinforces Dependence on Raw Mineral Exports

The rail lines that are mentioned in relation to public transport, mainly focus on "pit to port". There is emphasis on building infrastructure for exporting raw minerals, the infrastructure is not geared to breaking down the apartheid uneven spatial development. The NDP's proposal on infrastructure does not put at the centre the need to connect rural towns to the mainstream of the economy, the infrastructure is not centred on supporting broad-based manufacturing. In short, infrastructure development is still ceiztred around the Minerals-Energy- Coin plex.

6. The NDP's Land Reform is Rooted in the Willing-Buyer, Willing-Seller Model

The NDP calls for:

1. Land reform to be carried out on the basis of willing/buyer willing/seller, land markets must not be "distorted"

2. Identification of the amount of land earmarked for redistribution at each point in time to be determined by the forces of demand and supply, to avoid price distortions

3. The amount of land to be redistributed is determined by fiscal constraints, this means that, under inflation targeting, when inflation is above the target, the state decides to scale down expenditure, then land reform suffers

4. The identification of land available for redistribution to be determined by the private sector and relevant government departments on a voluntary basis.

5. Funds to finance land reform will be raised from farmers who choose, on a voluntary basis, to make contributions if they so wish.

The NDP calls for a market-based approach to land reform; the NDP puts faith in market forces to resolve a 361 -year old historical injustice!

7. The Macroeconomic Policy Framework Remains Neo-liberal

1. Inflation-targeting remains the macroeconomic policy framework.

2. Exchange controls will continue to be gradually dismantled.

3. Existing tax policy framework will largely remain in place, no progressive taxation, tax on financial transactions, speculative capital inflows, etc.

4. Financing of infrastructure development will be through tariffs and mainly through PPPs (or partial privatisation)

5. Fiscal framework remains constrained by the inflation target

6. Employment is not the direct primary focus of macroeconomic policy

7. The financial system is not going to be regulated, there will not be a state bank here.

The macroeconomic framework of the NDP remains identical as that of GEAR and the DA!

F. Conclusion

Some people seek to present us as spoilers. They want to coerce the industrial proletariat and its allies into sheepish silence and ignorance. They want to put us down, shut our voices up, and push through a policy based on ignorance, like they are doing with the youth wage subsidy, which is based on false research, as COSATU has demonstrated.

We do not see in this NDP anything radical, there is no radical second phase of transition in the NDP. What we see is an attack on the power of the working class, and time strengthening of colonial and imperialist ownership of our economy.

We said NDP is DA. Some people said we should quote pages and passages to prove this, we were accused of being "infantile", some went on to call us "sore thumbs". As Lenin warned us, exactly 100 years ago:

"People always have been the foolish victims of deception and self-deception in politics, and they always will be until they have learnt to seek out the interests of some class or other behind all moral, religious, political and social phrases, declarations and promises. Champions of reforms and improvements ivill always be fooled by the defenders of the old order until they realise that every old institution, however barbarous and rotten it may appear to be, is kept going by the forces of certain ruling classes. And there is only one way of smashing the resistance of those classes, and that is to find, in the very society which surrounds us, the forces which can-and, owing to their social position, must-constitute the power capable of sweeping away the old and creating the new, and to enlighten and organise those forces for the struggle."

Numsa invites the entire South African working class and its allies, to join us in rejecting the plan - the NDP - which offers false hopes because it is not rooted in any efforts to root out the historic cause of our development and extreme human challenges: colonialism of a special type.

We invite South Africans to read carefully both the NDP in its entirety and our analysis, and to make up their minds!

Irvin Jim

NUMSA General Secretary

March 2013

Transcribed from PDF. As such there may be errors in the text. NUMSA's full critique of the NDP can be accessed here - PDF.

Issued by NUMSA, March 19 2013

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