Mediapreneurs

Umsebenzi Online, Volume 9, No. 13, 7 July 2010

In this Issue:

• 'Tenderpreneurs' of a special type? South African media on trial
• SACP statement on the conviction of former Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi

  

Red Alert:

'Tenderpreneurs' of a special type? South African media on trial

  

Blade Nzimande, General Secretary

Two significant, though seemingly unconnected, events occurred in South Africa, that in other democracies would probably have led to serious introspection on the part of media or even commissions of enquiry into the media. The conviction of former Police Commissioner, Jackie Selebi, and the admission by former Argus journalist, Ashley Smith, that he was playing an active role - abusing his position as a journalist - in factionalist battles within our movement, are two deeply interconnected events in a number of ways.

Firstly, these two events highlight one of the most serious threats to our democracy - that of abusing positions of power, authority and public trust to promote narrow, selfish interests and political agendas inimical to our democracy. It might as well be that 'mediapreneurs' like Ashley Smith are probably the tip of the iceberg in our South African media.

The second connection between these two developments is media's one-sided emphasis on the conviction of Jackie Selebi, without also reminding us, as the SACP public statement on this matter does, that "a stench smell hangs around the (Jackie Selebi) case relating to the past turf battles between the former Scorpions and the South African Police Services". And that there are no angels in all of this, both on the side of the prosecutor and the guilty, as elements within the NPA (including some of its leading prosecutors), working with certain media personalities, were themselves not so long ago exposed in serious abuse of state organs to pursue political agendas.

The SACP statement also continues to say

"…we must now use this opportunity to also ensure that our recent history of abuse of state organs by elements in the criminal justice system to further their political and factional battles, as well as their own financial interests and greed, must be something of the past".

It is therefore no wonder to us that the SACP statement was completely ignored by all sections of the media. We suspect this is because it highlights what we had always been concerned about, that sections of the media themselves have been active participants in various factional and dangerous political agendas.

The coverage by media of the Ashley Smith confession one-sidedly heaps criticism on the politicians involved (not that there should be no such focus), but the very serious transgressions by Smith are being underplayed. Instead the media is turning Smith into a victim of political machinations, seemingly taking the cue from the DA, without seeing Smith as an active colluder and beneficiary out of these political machinations. The fact that a senior journalist could engage in his dangerous shenanigans without the Argus newspaper being able to detect this, in the slant or nature of his coverage of ANC events, says a lot about what is wrong with South African media.

In addition, Anton Harber already heaps praises on the response by the Argus to Smith's confessions by writing a prominent editorial distancing the publication from Smith's actions. We must completely disagree with Harber as these are matters of no ordinary editorials, but they much more serious action than lengthy editorials, but go to the heart of the credibility of South African media. This is even more so because we do not know whether Smith has told the whole truth and/or what else is he not telling us?

It is for the above reasons that this development calls for a very serious reflection on the role played by South African media, as there is obviously more to the story. This comes after another journalist from the same group had admitted to writing and fabricating a document known as the 'Special Browse Mole', and was thereafter rewarded with a senior role by this group. This points to the fact that the problem of what is called 'brown envelope' journalism and this type of rot is a much more serious problem than the media is willing to admit.

The media industry itself has been reticent if not cowardly when such issues have been exposed in the recent past. For example when a senior editor was caught out shamefully publishing lies about the Deputy President's private life, there was no sanction or condemnation from the media fraternity.

As a country at least we are owed by South African media a full account as to what comprehensive measures is it going to take to dig deeper into 'mediapreneurship' within its ranks. Ordinarily these, in any democracy, are matters of judicial enquiries.

It is for this reason that the question of 'self-regulation' by the media and the necessity for an independent 'media tribunal' is a matter that should be forcefully brought back onto the agenda as correctly argued by the Secretary General of the ANC, Cde Gwede Mantashe.

That this phenomenon may run even deeper that meets the eye is what has now become like permanent briefing sessions between faceless leaders within the ranks of our Alliance and some journalists about discussions taking place in our confidential meetings. These relationships are probably more than just ordinary media sources inside our organizations, but possibly involve arrangements not too dissimilar to those Smith says he was involved in.

A whole host of questions needs to be posed to, and by, the South African media in South Africa today? To what extent has the notion of media freedom been corrupted, if not co-opted, by the very highly monopolistic capitalist media oligarchies that dominate our private media in particular? What internal and serious internal news integrity processes have been, or need to be, put in place by media in our country as party of 'quality and credibility assurance? To put it more bluntly, what measures does the South African media have to ensure that its journalists are not financially bought and corrupted to serve particular political or even financial interests? Of course one can expect that these questions will be dismissed on the grounds that to put such measures in place would interfere with media freedom and journalistic independence. Yet, failure to do so may mean that media freedom and journalistic independence may as well have become freedom to be bribed and independence for accepting dirty money by journalists!

We urge those in the media who are aware of corruption in their ranks to speak out. We must show a red card to corruption in the media just like in any other workplace or institution. The tendency of dismissing any criticism of the media as an attack on press freedom results in the media behaving like a protection racket and leaves no space for introspection.

The Ashley Smith confession is indeed a very, very serious matter that threatens to blow into pieces whatever credibility South African media still has and, much more seriously, may even roll back the many advances made in promoting media freedom in our country.

Nevertheless I can hear some of my comrades saying "It's capitalist media bastard! What else do you expect of it!"

Asikhulume!

SACP statement on the conviction of former Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi

4 July 2010

The SACP notes last week’s judgement of the Gauteng High Court in relation to the charges brought against former Police Commissioner, Jackie Selebi. The whole case underscores our belief that no one should be above the law and that all criminal, corrupt and illegal activities must be consistently fought irrespective of the individuals involved. We urge the criminal justice system as a whole to intensify its fight against corruption and all other criminal activities without fear or favour.

The SACP is however concerned that a dark shadow still hangs over this whole case. Firstly, a stench smell still surrounds the case relating to the past turf battles between the former Scorpions and the South African Police Services. It is our belief that as we move forward we must scrupulously ensure that all elements of these past battles are thoroughly dealt with.

Secondly, we must now use this opportunity to also ensure that our recent history of abuse of state organs by elements in the criminal justice system to further their political and factional battles, as well as their own financial interests and greed, must be something of the past.

In the light of this judgement we urge the whole of government, especially the criminal justice system, to intensify efforts to fight all forms of corruption and abuse, including in the intelligence services, as part of strengthening our democracy.

The judgement in this case should embolden government and indeed all South Africans to intensify the struggle against corruption and for government to act decisively against all evidence of alleged corruption in all of society.

Issued by the SACP

Critique of Gotha Programme: Lenin on Marx

State and Revolution, Part 5a

The main text download, linked below, which is Marx’s Critique of the Gotha Programme, is given here as a supplementary to the fifth chapter of Lenin’s “The State and Revolution”. There is one more chapter to be sent out in this series, next week. After that, on the SADTU Political Education Forum, we will begin the series on “Development, Rural and Urban”.

In this case, our introduction can largely come from Great Lenin himself. Writing of the “withering away of the state”, Lenin begins by making a distinction between the “polemical” and the “positive” parts of Marx’s text:

“Marx explains this question most thoroughly in his Critique of the Gotha Programme. The polemical part of this remarkable work, which contains a criticism of Lassalleanism, has, so to speak, overshadowed its positive part, namely, the analysis of the connection between the development of communism and the withering away of the state.”

Lenin takes the “theory of development” as a given, fixed and firm. We as the CU may question this finality, next week, using Ron Press’s essay, “New Tools for Marxists”. Lenin writes:

“The whole theory of Marx is the application of the theory of development - in its most consistent, complete, considered and pithy form - to modern capitalism. Naturally, Marx was faced with the problem of applying this theory both to the forthcoming collapse of capitalism and to the future development of future communism.”

Lenin quotes the following from Marx:

"Between capitalist and communist society lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat."

Referring to the late-19^th to early 20^th century period of legal, constitutional democracy in Germany, Lenin says:

“during this period the Social-Democrats were able to achieve far more than in other countries in the way of "utilizing legality", and organized a larger proportion of the workers into a political party than anywhere else in the world.”

But then asks:

“What is this largest proportion of politically conscious and active wage slaves that has so far been recorded in capitalist society? One million members of the Social-Democratic Party - out of 15,000,000 wage-workers! Three million organized in trade unions - out of 15,000,000!”

For Lenin at this revolutionary moment the numbers are crucial. The proportion of workers organised, compared to the whole, is crucial. So it is with us in South Africa today. Democratisation means organising. The National Democratic Revolution is a practical job of organising people into democratic structures.

A further practical job is the management of society, where, as Lenin says:

“In the Critique of the Gotha Programme, Marx goes into detail to disprove Lassalle's idea that under socialism the worker will receive the "undiminished" or "full product of his labor". Marx shows that from the whole of the social labor of society there must be deducted a reserve fund, a fund for the expansion of production, a fund for the replacement of the "wear and tear" of machinery, and so on. Then, from the means of consumption must be deducted a fund for administrative expenses, for schools, hospitals, old people's homes, and so on. Instead of Lassalle's hazy, obscure, general phrase ("the full product of his labor to the worker"), Marx makes a sober estimate of exactly how socialist society will have to manage its affairs.”

This is a point for the advocates of nationalisation to ponder.

Download:

Critique of the Gotha Programme, Karl Marx, 1875 (8317 words, 12 pages)

Other reading, containing more of Lenin on Marx:

The State and Revolution, Chapter 5, Economic Basis of Withering Away of the State, Lenin (6474 words, 8 pages)

Previous main Communist University posts:
Channel [members]	Course Archive	Weeks	Posted
SADTU Pol Ed [435]	Lenin’s The State and Revolution	5/6	3 July 2010
CU Africa [232]	Marx’s Capital, Volumes 1, 2 and 3	4/33	29 June 2010
CU [3011]	Philosophy and Religion	3/10	3 July 2010
Courses completed in 2010 to date:
SADTU Pol Ed	National Democratic Revolution	12	March - June
	Basics	10	January - March
SADTU Pol Schools	3-Day School	3 days	2-4 June
CU	No Woman, No Revolution	10	March - June
	Basics	10	January – March
Click here to visit Marxists Internet Archive

Living without a State

State and Revolution, Part 5

Living without a State

“We are not utopians, and do not in the least deny the possibility and inevitability of excesses on the part of individual persons, or the need to stop such excesses. In the first place, however, no special machine, no special apparatus of suppression, is needed for this: this will be done by the armed people themselves”

In “The State and Revolution”, and especially in Chapter 5 of the work (download linked below), Lenin treats the question of the demise of the bourgeois state, and of the state in general, as a practical matter of immediate concern. The state is to be replaced by “the simple organization of the armed people” and the Russian Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies that already existed at the time of his writing the book, just before the October Revolution, were examples of such simple organization, wrote Lenin.

This simple kind of organisation is what we in South Africa today would call organs of people’s power. There is a lot in this chapter that bears upon the question of how to make the revolution permanent, using such principles. The best way to blog it seems to be to quote quite a lot of it, and then to make a few remarks at the end. So here goes (quotations are in italics):

… in capitalist society we have a democracy that is curtailed, wretched, false, a democracy only for the rich, for the minority. The dictatorship of the proletariat, the period of transition to communism, will for the first time create democracy for the people, for the majority, along with the necessary suppression of the exploiters, of the minority. Communism alone is capable of providing really complete democracy, and the more complete it is, the sooner it will become unnecessary and wither away of its own accord.

… under capitalism we have the state in the proper sense of the word, that is, a special machine for the suppression of one class by another, and, what is more, of the majority by the minority. Naturally, to be successful, such an undertaking as the systematic suppression of the exploited majority by the exploiting minority calls for the utmost ferocity and savagery in the matter of suppressing, it calls for seas of blood, through which mankind is actually wading its way in slavery, serfdom and wage labour.

[Now we can] fully appreciate the correctness of Engels' remarks mercilessly ridiculing the absurdity of combining the words "freedom" and "state". So long as the state exists there is no freedom. When there is freedom, there will be no state.

What is usually called socialism was termed by Marx the "first", or lower, phase of communist society. Insofar as the means of production becomes common property, the word "communism" is also applicable here, providing we do not forget that this is not complete communism. The great significance of Marx's explanations is that here, too, he consistently applies materialist dialectics, the theory of development, and regards communism as something which develops out of capitalism.

Democracy means equality. The great significance of the proletariat's struggle for equality and of equality as a slogan will be clear if we correctly interpret it as meaning the abolition of classes. But democracy means only formal equality. And as soon as equality is achieved for all members of society in relation to ownership of the means of production, that is, equality of labour and wages, humanity will inevitably be confronted with the question of advancing farther, from formal equality to actual equality, i.e., to the operation of the rule "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs".

By what stages, by means of what practical measures humanity will proceed to this supreme aim we do not and cannot know. But it is important to realize how infinitely mendacious is the ordinary bourgeois conception of socialism as something lifeless, rigid, fixed once and for all, whereas in reality socialism will only be the beginning of a rapid, genuine, truly mass forward movement, embracing first the majority and then the whole of the population, in all spheres of public and private life.

Democracy is of enormous importance to the working class in its struggle against the capitalists for its emancipation. But democracy is by no means a boundary not to be overstepped; it is only one of the stages on the road from feudalism to capitalism, and from capitalism to communism.

  

Road to freedom

The following statements by Lenin from this chapter spell out the road from capitalism via socialism to communism:

Democracy is a form of the state, it represents, on the one hand, the organized, systematic use of force against persons; but, on the other hand, it signifies the formal recognition of equality of citizens, the equal right of all to determine the structure of, and to administer, the state. This, in turn, results in the fact that, at a certain stage in the development of democracy, it first welds together the class that wages a revolutionary struggle against capitalism - the proletariat, and enables it to crush, smash to atoms, wipe off the face of the earth the bourgeois, even the republican-bourgeois, state machine, the standing army, the police and the bureaucracy and to substitute for them a more democratic state machine, but a state machine nevertheless, in the shape of armed workers who proceed to form a militia involving the entire population.

Accounting and control - that is mainly what is needed for the "smooth working", for the proper functioning, of the first phase of communist society. All citizens are transformed into hired employees of the state, which consists of the armed workers. All citizens become employees and workers of a single countrywide state "syndicate". All that is required is that they should work equally, do their proper share of work, and get equal pay; the accounting and control necessary for this have been simplified by capitalism to the utmost and reduced to the extraordinarily simple operations - which any literate person can perform - of supervising and recording, knowledge of the four rules of arithmetic, and issuing appropriate receipts.

When the majority of the people begin independently and everywhere to keep such accounts and exercise such control over the capitalists (now converted into employees) and over the intellectual gentry who preserve their capitalist habits, this control will really become universal, general, and popular; and there will be no getting away from it, there will be "nowhere to go".

The whole of society will have become a single office and a single factory, with equality of labour and pay.

Easier said than done?

Clearly, the kind of stateless self-organisation of the armed people envisaged above by Lenin did not happen in the remaining six years of his lifetime, and still less did it come to pass in the USSR in the years that followed. It is true that the Soviet Union was constantly under attack, but this by itself is not an explanation. If the free organisation of an armed people is a higher form of organisation, then prima facie it ought to be the best kind of organisation in wartime, too. The argument that says that there cannot be socialism in one country is a fallacy to this extent, in the absence of further elaboration.

The history of the Soviet Union and of the other socialist countries, including China, Vietnam, DPRK and Cuba today, can never be reduced to a formula. Yet it does seem that more work of the kind that Lenin was doing on his unfinished book, The State and Revolution, is needed. Such work could resemble that of our late comrade Ron Press, in his essay “New Tools for Marxists”, where Ron Press showed how “Chaos Theory” validates and elaborates the theory of a society existing without a State. The image above is one of the diagrams that Ron Press used to illustrate his article.

Download:

The State and Revolution, Chapter 5, Economic Basis of Withering Away of the State, Lenin (6474 words, 8 pages)

Addition text:

Critique of the Gotha Programme, Karl Marx, 1875 (8317 words, 12 pages)

Previous main Communist University posts:
Channel [members]	Course Archive	Weeks	Posted
SADTU Pol Ed [435]	Lenin’s The State & Revolution	4/6	27 June 2010
CU Africa [232]	Marx’s Capital, Volumes 1, 2 & 3	4/33	29 June 2010
CU [3011]	Philosophy and Religion	3/10	3 July 2010
Courses completed in 2010 to date:
SADTU Pol Ed	National Democratic Revolution	12	March - June
	Basics	10	January - March
SADTU Pol Schools	3-Day School	3 days	2-4 June
CU	No Woman, No Revolution	10	March - June
	Basics	10	January – March
Click here to visit Marxists Internet Archive

The National Question Revisited

The National Question Revisited

Ngoako Ramatlhodi, ANC Today, Johannesburg, 2 July 2010

Those who taught us always counselled that the national question must at all times remain a permanent agenda item of the revolution. This is so, because a proper understanding of relations between groupings, tribes and nationalities will enable a revolutionary movement to make informed choices in changing and at times adjusting such relationships in order to build a united society.

In this context, the most important first step is to acknowledge the existence of the different groupings as postulated, and to accept the fact that they relate to one another through a complex set of unequal relationships. It is this unequal set of relationships that must preoccupy the national question so that we can study and monitor the changes manifesting on a continuous basis. Some changes are subtle and difficult to detect whereas others are spectacular and announce their presence in dramatic fashion.

Some would argue that now that apartheid is behind us why don't we forget the past and focus on the things that unite us. The argument goes further to say that an acknowledgement of the different groupings, as postulated, is backward step detracting from our effort at building a single South African nation. This argument misses the point in that it seeks to ignore the actual existence of various national groups in South Africa. They do exist and the study of relations between them is the subject of the national question. These relations are in a state of constant change.

In society such change is driven by social forces who must understand the nature and content of that change. In this context, it is important to understand that, under apartheid the white minority occupied a dominant position in all spheres of national life in relation to the black majority. In order to retain power it developed and applied a system of divide and rule in order to reinforce such divisions.

Firstly, it discriminated against black people as a whole. In other words black people in general, occupied an inferior position in relation to all whites. Secondly, it gave Indians blacks and Coloureds blacks a slightly favourable position in relation to Africans blacks, without making them equal to whites. Thirdly, it divided Africans blacks into tribes and assigned them to different bantustans.

This was the political arrangement we inherited in 1994. At an ideological level the apartheid regime left nothing to chance in fostering and cultivating the virtues of our differences under the god given right of whites to dominate and rule over the rest. There is little doubt that the strategy did have an impact and reinforced elements of tribal and regional consciousness amongst blacks, whilst reinforcing white national consciousness under Afrikaner domination.

The situation one paints out must be understood as a reflection, in general terms, of economic relations amongst various groupings under apartheid. The slight difference is that, at the economic level, imperial International capital was never fully supplanted by Afrikaner capital. In fact they continued to thrive side by side on the back of the super exploitation of black people. Events of 1994 altered the political relations between the races by introducing non-racialism as a fundamental basis of our constitutional dispensation. Political power was, thus, transferred to blacks through democratic elections, given their absolute majority. For the first time, blacks had power which they could use to change the relations between themselves and whites, and also to change relations amongst themselves.

Even though the ANC had won the first democratic elections with decisive majority, it opted for a government of national unity in order to ensure a full buy in by all, in particular by Afrikaners who were suffering the trauma of loosing political power. The creation of a government of national unity was a masterful application of the principles underlining the national question, in that it achieved both affirmation and accommodation. Here one is referring to affirmation of the black people and the accommodation of the former oppressors, the whites.

In contrast to compromises made at the Convention for Democratic South Africa (CODESA), which were a result of relative equal balance of forces at the time, the government of national unity was a unilateral and voluntary initiative by the victorious forces of liberation. A point has to be made that a proper application of the principles of the national question expresses itself in a general movement towards bringing different people together on the basis of true equality, a movement away from keeping them apart and unequal.

In filling up its leadership bodies, the ANC has always been conscious of the need to affirm minorities. In the past, we also applied the same principles when we compiled our lists for elections to government bodies at all levels. The post-Polokwane deviation of voting for slates, that is, where there are two groups contesting each other in ANC conferences, instead of individual members standing as candidates, undermines the correct application of the principles of the national question. This tendency opens the floodgates wide open, for opportunism to thrive within the movement. It has become difficult if not utterly impossible to apply our own principles of selecting leadership as encapsulated in the document, 'Through the Eye of the Needle'.

In electing leadership bodies, our political culture has always been to look at the political tasks to be carried out at any given historic moment. Having done that, we would proceed to elect suitable individual comrades to the collective leadership bodies, with a mandate to implement the agreed programme. The problem with the institutionalisation of the slate tendency is that, it will not only undermine the unity and cohesion of the movement, but also destabilize national unity.

Once a faction captures the levers of power as a faction, it will run affairs of the movement and affairs of the state as a faction. The reason for this is that in its behaviour a political entity reflects its own internal characteristics to the external environment it interacts with. As a rule, factions turn to delegitimise different opinions and criminalizes even lawful challenges allowed under the rules of engagement. This applies equally to victorious and loosing factions. In such a situation political principles and national interests give way to herd mentality and behaviour at our own collective peril.

Only true democrats, stand a reasonable chance of successfully applying principles of the national question correctly, in that they allow the majority to prevail without punishing minorities for being minorities. Equally, those who have lost elections would not engage in destructive behaviour outside accepted rules of engagement. In this context, it is important to understand that in South Africa, blacks are a universal majority, who take their different shades according to locality whilst at the same time, forming different strings of one whole black nation.

In an area predominantly occupied by black-coloureds, such as the Western Cape, it is important to reflect this majority in both leadership bodies of the movement and the government. It would be incorrect for African blacks to claim leadership of such a locality without the active support of the local coloured blacks. In fact, the correct thing to do is to allow these minority majorities to hold sway in their own localities. Recent experiments to the contrary have proven disastrous to the ANC. The correct application of the principles of the national question demands of individual cadres to put national interests above any other interest including their own.

The Western Cape situation just described, easily reproduces itself in many wards in the country. A close scrutiny of ward populations would show that there are many wards which are predominantly white. Since the ANC branch is ward based, the leadership bodies of the branch must reflect the will of the majority members in that ward. In this context, the revolutionary task of the ANC branch is to persuade residents in their locality of the correctness of our policies with the view of winning them over into membership. Where whites constitute, the majority membership of the branch, this should reflect in its leadership bodies. Sometimes it is necessary to apply this principle, even where such majorities are minorities in the branch or in the ward. A typical example is a traditional coloured ward, which incorporates new African settlements.

This brings us to the process of selection of candidates for local government. In line with the main argument in this article, it is being suggested that the practice of testing the acceptability of ANC candidates with communities where they are to stand as ward candidates, be restored. In many ways this would strengthen the people's participation by involving them in the pre election selection processes. This practice was common, particularly in the early days. The reason why it is being raised sharply is that it is gradually being eroded. In this regard, the ANC election team has taken a decision to involve the NEC and hopefully the whole movement, in a debate as to how we can ensure public participation in the selection process, without watering down the quality of revolutionary commitment to the election manifesto of the movement.

One has taken a considerable amount of time on the politics of the national question. This is partly because proper and correct understanding of the comforts and discomforts brought about by changes in relations between different racial groups enables radical reform to occur in a unifying rather than a divisive manner. National unity is an important confidence building measure which could assist as the country confronts the inevitable changes that must take place in the more intricate economic fundamentals.

As the foundation on which the society is anchored, the economy poses the most difficult challenge to the national democratic revolution. Sadly, sixteen years after independence, we have failed to democratise the apartheid economy, with the result that today South Africa is said to be the most unequal society in the world. In this regard, whites have become wealthier and blacks have become poorer with African blacks the worst of in the packing order, as a general trend.

This situation has to be changed urgently as it poses the most serious threat to our national security and stability. The ANC must wake up to its responsibilities before it is too late. We cannot resolve the national question outside the economic reforms necessary to make our people equals at an economic level. Only when there is economic parity among all national groups, can we begin to talk about a maturing national democratic revolution. We have to implement the policy of a broad based affirmative action on the same scale and with the same determination displayed in preparing for the 2010 Soccer World Cup. In this regard, failure is not an option as the country will increasingly slide into instability and chaos.

This process must be led by a strong developmental state, because the necessary revolutionary changes can only be successfully implemented by a strong government with enough legal authority to effect such changes. The envisaged, and in fact, unavoidable radical changes require more government and not less government in public affairs. That government has to assume an activist posture in its programmes and activities. In particular, the government must be directly involved in implementing radical economic reforms.

In this context history will show that the biggest error in the first years of our democracy was to leave the economy to the market forces, laced with the cancer of apartheid inequalities. In doing this the country took comfort in the almost desperate national illusion that the cancer of apartheid ravaging the market forces would somehow go away on its own. Yet, we all know that for cancer to be healed it has to be surgically removed. The country, now need a good surgeon in the form of a strong government.

To carry out a successful operation the government must initiate and implement a cluster of initiatives, to enable the process. The following are but examples of available possibilities. We have to increase spending on infrastructure in rural and poor urban areas, in order to push back unemployment as well as to provide the necessary conditions for economic development. As part of this cluster of initiatives we have to accelerate efforts to build an efficient and accountable civil service particularly at local government level. The creation of a single public service for all spheres of government is a pre-requisite, in this regard.

Parastatals provide government with immediate and real opportunities to create an alternative economy to the existing apartheid economy. As a rule they have to be strengthened as the frontline instruments of economic reform and change. Therefore, we have to actively search for new openings in the economy where suitable and new parastatals could be created. In order to play this role successfully they must remain public entities both in form and content and not semi-private entities as the current trend seem to suggest. In this regard, what is required is more direct government control, which means less or no power to the current boards. In this form, parastatals would be more amenable to implementing government policy faster and more efficiently. It must be said that, this far, the role of parastatals as instruments of economic development and empowerment of black people, has been awfully inadequate.

Afrikaners, post-1948 seem to have understood this better than the ANC, post-1994. In this context, it is imperative that the leadership bodies of these parastatals must fully reflect the general demographics of the population with African blacks, firmly at the levers of control. So constituted, these entities are likely to be more sensitive to their role as the locomotive for the rapid promotion of a broad based black economic empowerment. In this context, the current situation where big business receives special favours from parastatals is not sustainable, in that it prejudices small and emerging business.

For instance, access to rail transport, freight and port is totally out of line with national policy. Emerging small scale miners export their produce with great difficulties unless they subordinate themselves to big multi nationals some of whom own exclusive rights to our ports. Similarly, tariffs charged by public entities seem to be stacked in favour of big players in the economy. This has to change.

Another key frontier is land reform. We must urgently revisit the principle of willing seller, willing buyer in order to release more land for massive agrarian reform. Vast state land must also be a target of land reform. In this regard beneficiaries of land reform should be given the necessary training and mentorship. The state should assist in buying and selling the produce from agricultural activities. Parallel to the cultivation of individual farmers, we should create a strong cooperative movement.

All these measures must be complemented by free and compulsory education, relevant to the developmental needs of our country. The country has no choice but to invest in the future. To make all these things possible a review of the legal regime is necessary. Where the need arises, amendments of existing legislation and the creation of the new legislation may be necessary. In this context, the constitution itself might have to be amended.

• Ngoako Ramatlhodi is an ANC NEC member

From: http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/anctoday/2010/at24.htm#art3