Volume 12, No. 5, 7 February 2013

In this Issue: Remembering Joe Slovo!! Public accountability and transformation are critical of our universities: Response to Professor Ihron Rensburg Electricity price hikes. Refusing to bear the sins of our elites

Red Readers Corner Remembering Joe Slovo!!

By Fikile "Slovo" Majola, SACP 13th Congress Central Committee and Politburo Member

This lecture was delivered at a Joe Slovo Memorial lecture in North West on the 27th Januray 2013

Introduction

Yesterday, yet another World Economic Forum ended in Davos, Switzerland. Through the IMF and World Bank, the global finance monopoly-capital once again preached the gospel of Neoliberalism to thousands of the global political leadership that gathered at this talk-fest, despite the fact that these policies have not worked over the past five years since the current round of the crisis of capitalism began. The Neoliberal regime of accumulation that began 40 years ago has run its course and it is fast approaching its limits, but capitalism itself is in the throes of an inherent systemic crisis which Neoliberalism has not been able to resolve. Here at our home front, our economy has still not recovered to the levels of growth scored ahead of the 2009 recession and the 1 million jobs that have been lost subsequently.

In 1989, in the midst of the epoch-making collapse of "actually existing socialism" in Eastern Europe, Comrade Joe Slovo wrote an internationally acclaimed pamphlet, "Has Socialism Failed?" which helped us in South Africa and across the world to grapple with the meaning and implications of those developments in relation to our struggle of the national democratic revolution and socialism. It is instructive to remember that when the fatal bone-marrow cancer took its toll on him, Cde JS had just begun to write what would have been an even more pertinent discussion document today in the midst of the current crisis of capitalism, which he had entitled "Has capitalism succeeded?" Unfortunately, his death deprived us, especially many of our youth militants who were swelling the ranks of the party in droves after its unbanning, of a South African contribution to Marxist political economy at the height of Neoliberal globalisation and aggressive imperialism in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Nonetheless, it is up to us to now, the current generation of communists in South Africa to emulate this outstanding revolutionary in developing a deeper understanding of the world as it is today and the related tasks arising from the present reality. In the midst of the sweeping capitalist crisis both internationally and domestically, it is easy to overlook this central principle in our philosophical outlook, which Dialego in his 1975 book, Philosophy and Class Struggle, emphasises by stating that there is always "the need to understand the world as it really is - which is, broadly speaking, a materialist approach, an approach which treats the world as a material force in its own right that exists independently of what we may think it or like it to be." But even before we begin to grapple with the present reality and discuss our contemporary tasks, especially those pertaining to this province, let us first appreciate who Cde Joe Slovo was and pay tribute to his outstanding contribution and sacrifice.

Cde JS was born in the village of Obelai, Lithuania on the 23rd May 1926 to Ann and Woolf Slovo and his family emigrated to South Africa when he was eight. His father worked as a truck driver in Johannesburg. JS left school after Standard 6 in 1941, to work as a dispatch clerk at a company called SA Druggists. Thereupon, the young JS joined the National Union of Distributive Workers, becoming the chief shopsteward and highly involved in organising a strike. He joined the SACP in 1942. In his book, "Slovo: The Unfinished Autobiography" he recounts this earlier years thus:

"But the main focus of my party activities was at my workplace where I recruited a number of members (mainly black but also a few whites including Mannie Brown), and we formed a factory group....The factory group helped create the Black Chemical Workers' Union and sometime later, one of the recruits, Nkosi, became its general secretary."

During the Second World War, inspired by the heroics of the Soviet's Red Army in its resistance to Hitler's fascist occupation, JS volunteered to join the war on the side of the allied forces. Between 1946 and 1950 he completed BA and LLB at Wits University, where he was a politically active student. Cde JS was a founder member of the Congress of Democrats, which he represented on the national consultative committee of the Congress Alliance during the process that led to the drawing up of the Freedom Charter.

Like many of his contemporary comrades, Cde JS suffered harassment and imprisonment from the regime. He was arrested and detained for two months during the Treason Trial of 1956, but charges against him were dropped in 1958. He was later arrested for six months during the State of Emergency declared after Sharpeville in 1960. In 1961, JS emerged as one of the leaders of Umkhonto we Sizwe. In 1963 he went into exile on instructions from the SACP and ANC. He spent his exile years in the UK, Angola, Mozambique and Zambia. In 1966 he did his LLM at the London School of Economics. Cde JS was based in Mozambique until 1984, when he was elected General Secretary of the party. At this point he was also MK's Chief of staff and a member of the NEC's working committee.

Cde JS made his return to South Africa in 1990 as part of the earlier phase of negotiations with the Apartheid regime, the so-called "talks about talks". It was during this period that Cde JS began to take ill; hence he could no longer lead the SACP as the General Secretary. In December 1991 he was then elected as the Chairperson at the 8th Congress in Soweto, with the late Chris Hani elected as the General Secretary. But true to his enduring commitment and sacrifice, at the time of his death on 6th January 1995, Cde JS was still in the front ranks of the leadership of our movement, he was:

• A member of Central Committee and Politburo of the SACP
• A member of the ANC's National Executive Committee and its National Working Committee, and
• A Minister of Housing in the Government of National Unity

The NDR and second phase of the transition

In 1988, as the Apartheid regime and the white ruling class where showing strains of strategic disarray on the back of the insurrectionary upsurge of the mid-1980s and when it seems as if the struggle was passing into a new phase, Cde JS took up the challenge of further elaborating the SACP's strategic perspective in his iconic paper, "The South African Working Class and the National Democratic Revolution." In the overall, this paper deals with class struggle and national struggle, the question of stages of struggle, inter-class alliances, and the role of our working class in the liberation front. All the cadres of the party, especially our young militant corps would do well to study this work, in which he instructively had this to say on the question of the stages of struggle:

"We reiterate that when we talk of stages we are talking simultaneously about distinct phases and a continuous journey. At the same time revolutionary practice demands that within each distinct stage there should be a selective concentration on those objectives which are most pertinent to its completion. This is no way detracts from the need to plant, within its womb, the seeds which will ensure a continuity towards the next stage."

It is within this theoretical framework that the working class in the ANC and Alliance must conceptualise the whole topical question of the second phase of our transition, which itself would take place within the context of the national democratic revolution. We are fresh from the 53rd Conference of the ANC in Mangaung last month, and the historic rally of the January 8th Message in eThekwini, marking the first step into the second century of the ANC and indeed the second phase of our transition. The ANC has declared 2013 The Year of Unity in Action towards Socio-Economic Freedom and the next 10 years, the decade of the cadre. Furthermore, the January 8th Message declares that "The ANC as the leader of the Alliance has the responsibility of providing revolutionary support to the Alliance components" and that "the SACP and COSATU in turn have a responsibility to strengthen and defend the ANC." In its declaration, the Mangaung conference itself stated that "we are boldly entering the second phase of the transition from apartheid colonialism to a national democratic society. This phase will be characterised by decisive action to effect economic transformation and democratic consolidation, critical both to improve the quality of life of all South Africans and to promote nation-building and social cohesion."

These momentous commitments by the ANC echo the outcomes of the successful 13th Congress of the SACP and 11th congress of COSATU, and from these developments and pronouncements three key points emerge:

• Firstly, that the 1994 democratic-breakthrough marked a new phase in the continuous NDR. As Cde JS would have said, in the course of this period the class content within the principal contradiction of the national struggle has increasingly assumed a predominant feature of the NDR as the direction of the transition became sharply contested in the midst of the realignment of political and class forces over the past 18 years, both within and outside our movement. The Manifesto of the Communist Party captures this principle of the universality of class struggle as the locomotive in any particular context, stage and terrain of struggle in the following manner:

"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes."

• Mangaung marks the consolidation of the advances that the working class has made within the ANC on the back of the Polokwane watershed, a fight back of the working class since that moment of the "strategic rupture" that occurred in our movement in the wake of the emergence '96 Class Project at the beginning of our transition.
• As it begins its second century, the ANC is now almost two decades in power, a stage at which many national liberation movements in Africa, Asia, Central America and the Caribbeans that have successfully led their democratic revolutions and independence struggles began to falter and flounder. This generally occurred either through defeat by imperialism and internal counter-revolutionary forces or through the successful high-jacking of the movement by the emerging petty-bourgeois stratum and bourgeoisie within the movement itself - ultimately in favour of the interests of the comprador bourgeoisie and imperialism.

This last point relating to the fact that the ANC is approaching its fifth general elections in 2014 whilst being an incumbent party for two decades – underscores the historical importance of the devastating blows struck by the working class and its allied forces on both the '96 Class Project in Polokwane and the populist-demagogy and its tenderpreneurs in Mangaung. Whilst we can expect the ideological and political contradictions and struggle to continue within the ANC in one form or another despite Mangaung, the determination on the part of the ANC to undertake a systematic process of organisational renewal clearly confirms that our revolution has a better chance to proceed uninterruptedly, though painstakingly in the context of the current balance of forces. All of these advances are no accidents of history, they are outcomes of a class conscious corps of a proletarian cadre within the Alliance and ANC and this is what the 13th Congress of the SACP means when it speaks of taking responsibility of the revolution and building working class hegemony in all sites of power. After all, Cde JS taught that "a speedy advance towards socialism will depend, primarily, on the place which the working class has won for itself as a leader of society." Indeed, this ascendant hegemony of the working class is now underscored in the Mangaung's "Preface to the 2007 Strategy and Tactics", where it says that:

"Strategy and Tactics 2007 affirms the strategic goal of the NDR as the resolution of the three basic and inter-related contradictions of Colonialism of a Special Type in South Africa: racial oppression, class super-exploitation and patriarchal relations of power. These antagonisms found expression in national oppression based on race; class super-exploitation directed against Black workers; and the triple oppression of the mass of women based on their race, their class and their gender. The main content of the National Democratic Revolution therefore remains the liberation of Africans in particular and Blacks in general from political and socioeconomic bondage."

The context of the second phase of the transition

The shared perspective amongst the ANC-led Alliance formations around the need for a radical phase of our transition is not a subjective posture merely reflecting an increasingly anxiety-stricken movement at the head of a restless constituency. It relates to the fluid underlying objective socio-political context in the country on the one hand, whilst on the other hand it relates to the changing international context. This shifting international context is characterised by the three principal features:

• Firstly, there is an overall shift of the political centre to the left in Latin America, across the continent. In both central America and the southern cone of the continent, the left forces are enjoying an unprecedented democratic hegemony as highlighted in strategic countries such as Brazil and Argentina, whilst in some countries that may be regarded as the weakest links in the chain of America's imperialism in the hemisphere such as Venezuela and Bolivia, the balance of class forces allows the left to make far reaching socialist advances.
• Secondly, it's the global crisis of capitalism which is chiefly engulfing the imperialist triad of North America, Europe and Japan which has simultaneously unleashed militant mass mobilisation amongst sections of the working class and youth in the global-north generally. This militancy was also inspired by the popular Arab Uprisings. Importantly, this crisis has at least intellectually and amongst the growing swathes of the working class, discredited Neoliberalism and finance monopoly capital or the banksters.
• Lastly, it's the declining unipolar world order that emerged from the ruins of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and the intensified globalisation of Neoliberalism. Thus, this overall shift in the international balance of power is characterised by the emergence of the China-led BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia and India) with each carrying immense productive forces and that have since been joined by South Africa. This is an important emerging counter-hegemonic pole that is grappling with alternatives to Neoliberalism and resisting western imperialist hegemony.

But what of the national context? Our strategic perspective remains one of the NDR as the most direct route to socialism. JS conceptualised this revolutionary process as characterised by distinct but interrelated stages in a continuous class struggle. Thus, we have always argued that in our context of Colonialism of a Special Type (CST), there is a class content in a national struggle and a national content in the class struggle. Hence, we have already observed earlier that over the past years since the democratic breakthrough, the class content of our NDR has increasingly assumed a primary feature in the political landscape, and we can account for this on the following basis:

• Firstly, the "strategic rupture" that occurred in the wake of the '96 Class Project and subsequently the emergence of the new tendency, a bi-product of the former ('96 Class Project) through its policies of the tenderisation of the state and its repression of the revolutionary content of the NDR.
• Secondly, since the Polokwane watershed with the defeated of the '96 Class Project, we have seen the realignment of class forces not only in terms of the formation of COPE, but more primarily the emergence of a network of the anti-majoritarian offensive led by the DA.

Using the superficial banner of our constitution, the strategic opponent of the NDR - white monopoly capital which includes bourgeois monopoly media houses and its global imperialist connections - is increasingly setting itself on a political collision course with the ANC as part of this wider anti-majoritarian offensive. The recent open political posture of FNB and the aggressive attacks on the economy and working class by Amplats and Gold Fields as they siphon their super-profits off-shore as part of putting the ANC on the back-foot - partially in response to discussions on minerals and mines - are but a few of many open and hidden forms in which the class struggle is intensifying as we seek to deepen the NDR in the second phase of our transition.

In part this growing confidence of the anti-majoritarian offensive is aided by the recent years of internal destabilisation of the ANC as a result of the emergence of new tendencies but also by the creeping disarray in the strategic outlook of our federation, COSATU. With regard to the latter, in keeping with the Slovo's implacable forthrightness and honesty, we can make an observation that there appears to be a re-emergence of the twin currents of workerism that have always been embedded in the evolution of our federation, as discussed by the SACP in its 1986 pamphlet, "Errors of Workerism". One of these currents is "workerism as economism". Its re-emergence has only become clear over the past few years since the 5th Central Committee of COSATU in tandem with the emergence of a few "progressive civil society" organisations that actually are ideologically and politically at the service of the strategic opponents of the NDR.

Thus, from proudly congratulating the federation at the 10th Congress for steadfastly remaining within the Alliance rather than staging a walk out in the face of constant provocations by the '96 Class Project, suddenly at the 11th Congress we are told that the federation has been too involved in the politics of the ANC. Because of the alleged growing "illegitimacy" of the ANC government, the future of COSATU is at risk as it may also disappear in the impending implosion of the ANC, we are told. Therefore, the federation is exhorted to "go back to the basics", by which it is meant something other than the perspective of the 2015 Plan which calls for the intensification of both our workplace struggles and the political programme as mutually reinforcing aspects of our strategic orientation. In reality, this current of workerism does not seek to withdraw the federation from the political terrain, but to recast the politics of the federation and its strategic outlook along the similar lines of the so-called "progressive civil society". In this regard, COSATU's primary vocation - in addition to waging the traditional trade union struggles - will be to "talk truth to power" (ala Mamphela Ramphela), but power redefined along the narrow lines of the anti-majoritarian offensive, meaning the state or the ANC government rather than power as embedded in the social relations of the CST.

The other coexisting current is "workerism as syndicalism", which ideologically it's a different political tendency and the SACP characterised it thus: "This syndicalist brand of workerism does not deny the need for workers to get involved in wider political issues. But it sees the trade union as the main, or even as the only organizational base for this political involvement."

It goes without saying that over the past few years both these currents of workerism have been hostile to the SACP as a vanguard party of the South African working class and indeed to our political strategy of the NDR, but for diametrically opposed reasons. And this confuses many in the ranks of the federation and Alliance who tend to assume that this is one and the same tendency, when in fact one current represents a rightwing version of workerism which is also reflected by its posture with regard to the debates within the federation on the international trade union movement. The revelations about its flirtation with the DA leader obviously shocked many within the federation. Whilst the other represents an ultra-left current of workerism - which carries delusions about a trade union movement leading a socialist revolution. Again, JS councils that "the trade union movement would be doomed if it attempted to act like a Communist Party."

Challenges, tasks and our responsibilities

As brief as it is possible in the constraints of this occasion, in the foregoing an attempt was made to delve into the overall character and key features of the present reality. But of course the hallmark of our party and the example of its outstanding leaders such as Slovo is to always ask the question at the end, what is to be done? After all, we pride ourselves on always seeking to heed this maxim of praxis which Dialego puts better in saying "revolutionaries regard themselves first and foremost as practical people dedicated to changing the world."

The out-break of the wild-cat strikes in mining and agriculture, two economic sectors that constituted the foundations of the CST - against the backdrop of the hundredth anniversary of the Land Act of 1913 - bitterly epitomise both the failures of the development path since 1994 and the major weaknesses of our organised working class formations. Mining and agriculture are critical sectors in our economy, especially here in your province.

For a moment, let us consider the meaning of Lonmin-Marikana tragedy, which continues to cast its shadow across the country and in particular in this province, as we await the outcomes of the commission of inquiry, though we are clear on what has been happening before and after this unfortunate incident. In brief, we can draw the following conclusions on developments around this over the past few years:

• The mining sector, platinum mining in particular have seen a decade of massive super-profits on the basis of rising commodity prices in international markets and super-exploitation of workers. This has now come to an end as a result of the global capitalist crisis. Hence, we have seen bosses engineering divisions amongst workers in order to weaken the NUM and using the current situation to restructure the sector on far more favourable terms through massive retrenchments. The recent announcements by Gold Fields and Amplats squarely validate this point.
• The anger and militancy in mining is not peculiar but has been seething in many strikes of COSATU affiliates and community protests. It is therefore not separable from the impact of the economic crisis, in which the growing inequalities poses a major challenge. This underscores the need to fight for a radical second phase of our transition, in which a living wage and decent jobs must be at the centre.
• For a militant trade union movement such as COSATU and its affiliates building the union in the workplace through recruitment and launching branches is an important organisational work on which resources and personnel capacity must be concentrated, but this is not an end in itself. It is a means of strengthening the union in order to fight for the improvement on the working conditions of workers and using these struggles to build working class consciousness. Without class consciousness workers are vulnerable to all kinds of opportunism, including the ultra-left variant that we have seen emerging around this tragedy.
• The Alliance correctly characterises what happened on the 16th August 2012 as a tragedy. But we know that this was not accidental and that it began before that fateful day with the killing of many NUM shopstewards and in the weeks after. Therefore, we have to turn this tragedy into an opportunity, which means that when we discuss this matter within our ranks, even before we can apportion blame that is justifiably attributable to the agent provocateurs of AMCU, the bosses and other political forces, our starting point must be to look at ourselves in the mirror. Lonmin-Marikana has brought the issue of the internal weaknesses of our trade union movement in workplaces to the fore. COSATU and all affiliates must draw lessons from the experiences of the NUM so that they can stick to the long-held traditions of worker control, class consciousness and placing service to members at the centre of their overall programmes. This must include a concerted fight against any creeping of bureaucratism, labour aristocracy, business unionism and indeed all currents of workerism.

Beyond the fight to win the wage demands of workers who have suffered years of super-exploitation, with the land question now being placed high on the agenda in terms of the January 8th Message, the SACP together with COSATU, NUM and FAWU must play a key role in spearheading the review of the BEE Charters and locating them within the broader context of the question of colonial land dispossession.

Organisationally, it is clear that the phenomenon of AMCU cannot anymore be treated as a narrow concern of the NUM alone, if ever it was. If anything, its emergence and the subsequent mushrooming of some ultra-left political outfit on the back of the Lonmin-Marikana tragedy reflects the fact we have not rooted the SACP amongst these workers. Therefore, in the course of this year – the year of the districts - a primary task of the party in this province ought to be the reestablishment of the SACP amongst the mine workers, not only in terms of strengthening and expanding our branches but also by establishing the party units in their workplaces. This is one way to emulate the endeavours of the young Slovo, who helped to establish "factory groups" of the party in the workplaces. COSATU and all its affiliates must concentrate on strengthening the shopstewards' movement of our Locals, which is the natural pool from which to build the SACP.

Between Polokwane and Mangaung the ANC in the province has grown by 27 792 members (37%), again this indicates a high potential for the SACP to grow further. This province was the third best performing province of the ANC in the 2009 elections after Limpopo and Mpumalanga. However, we are facing major challenges in the "strategic centre of power" in this province. According to the Organisational Report of the ANC's 53rd Conference:

"The North West was among the first provinces to hold provincial conferences after the 52nd National Conference. It is in this provincial conference that the culture of physical fights in ANC meetings was ushered in and then spread to other structures of the movement, with the Sun City Provincial Conference broadcasted as a war zone."

Surely, this suggests that a vacuum may have occurred in terms the active presence of an advanced corps of SACP cadre within the ANC, building working class hegemony. Otherwise, it would be an indictment on our party if our own cadreship happens to be actively involved in the many parallel structures, rather than strengthening the ANC, especially in the Ngaka Modiri Molema region, which is now under the Regional Task Team.

Similarly, let's also heed the concerns expressed by the Organisational Report of the ANC's 53rd Conference:

"Local governance is in disarray in this province, with mayors being removed at will. The most extreme case was not just following the trend in removing the mayors, but donating an important municipality to the DA. This is the same municipality where seven councillors were not registered during the 2011 local government elections. About 90% of the municipalities had not submitted financial reports by the time the Auditor General released the audit report for local government."

In this year of the district your tasks are clearly cut out in this province both as the SACP in intervening at the level of local governance but also as a revolutionary class within the ANC, the strategic centre of power. This malaise cannot be allowed to continue.

Conclusion

Cde Joe Slovo, one of our finest Isithwalandwe/Seaparankoe would have been 87 years old this year; he died when he was 69. The whole idea of memorial lectures is to draw inspiration from these distinguished martyrs and forbearers of our movement, to learn from their particular history, of which the SACP is especially proud of Joe Slovo's. He was an embodiment of our movement as a whole, both theoretically and practically, having cut his political teeth in the elementary stage of the development of our trade union movement, as a militant democrat within the ANC and as one of the consummate Marxist-Leninists that the SACP has ever produced! We owe it to him and many others to ensure that our NDR deepens uninterruptedly towards socialism.

Socialism is the future, build it now!

Viva the SACP, Viva!

Viva the ANC, Viva!

Viva the COSATU, Viva!

Viva SANCO, Viva!

Viva the Mass Democratic Movement, Viva!

Long live the spirit of Joe Slovo, Long live!

Public accountability and transformation are critical of our universities: Response to Professor Ihron Rensburg

Alex Mashilo is former student leader with background participation in legislative transformation in the mid-1990s, current YCLSA Deputy National Secretary

The opinion piece by the University of Johannesburg's Vice-Chancellor and Principal Ihron Rensburg headlined "Regulatory overkill threatens academic autonomy in South Africa", published by the Business Day, 31 January 2013 refers. Rensburg's main question is whether all South African universities are in crisis. His answer is that he would "imagine so, given the recent legislative and policy actions of Higher Education and Training Minister Blade Nzimande".

By the Minister's "legislative and policy actions" Rensburg singles out "three sets of regulatory interventions": the Higher Education and Training Laws Amendment Act, which passed through Parliament, a set of proposed reporting regulations, and the establishment of an oversight committee on the transformation of South African universities. At the heart of Rensburg's thesis is the issue of institutional autonomy, which is not new.

In the mid-1990s when the transition towards what the African National Congress envisioned as a national democratic society – a non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous South Africa in which there is a better life for all came into effect, various interests that sought to preserve white domination, colonial and apartheid privileges embarked on all sorts of manoeuvres, assumed different manifestations and sought to delimit the role of the democratically elected government. This conservatism became one of the ingredients that forged what could be characterised as a version of a new liberalism of a special type, special because of its flexible accommodation of conservatism and because its conservatism was modelled around the old South Africa as a colony of special type.

Unlike totalitarian conservatism which was still in denial, this version South African neoliberalism recognised that apartheid could no longer continue in its old form and in its entirety. It embraced democracy as liberal democracy in which its historic mission would be to defend the strategic essence of the strategic advantages acquired during and by those who were favoured by apartheid. In the same way as some from among the oppressed became agents of the apartheid system with others resigning from and turning against the national liberation struggle the neoliberalism of a special type also discovered its own agents from among the historically oppressed.    

In education the neoliberalism of a special type argued for an unbridled institutional autonomy as part of its liberal agenda to delimit the role of the democratically elected government. This agenda was particularly led by historically white institutions. There can be no doubt as to what their agenda was. Under apartheid, the historically white institutions enjoyed themselves and did not have any problems whatsoever with regards to autonomy. Once apartheid was defeated, they had to embark on everything in order to keep the "black government" out of the spheres of white control and to resist transformation, particularly redress and equity.

The slow pace of transformation which led to the establishment of the Oversight Committee on the Transformation of South African Universities as announced by Minister Blade Nzimande on 23 January 2013 is therefore completely no accident. Rensburg condemns the establishment of this committee along with other measures aimed at advancing transformation and ensuring good governance in universities, arguing that these legislative and regulatory amendments erode the institutional autonomy of universities. This is worrying.

What is deeply worrying is that Rensburg, indeed an honourable Professor, is economical with the truth in trying to portray the image that there have been many legislative and regulatory changes by the Department of Higher Education and Training under Minister Blade Nzimande. The complete truth is that since 19 December 1997 when the Higher Education Act commenced it was amended annually for five consecutive years from 1999 to 2003. It was amended again in 2008, a year before the Department of Higher Education and Training as headed by Minister Nzimande was established. In the process there were regulations also adopted.

The process of legislative and regulatory changes in higher education and training between 2010 and 2012 is therefore not new. It is the same process that brought about the promulgation of the very Higher Education and Training Act, 101 of 1997. This is defined in the White Paper 3 of 1997, ‘A Framework for the Transformation of Higher Education', as a process that seeks to guide programmes and processes aimed at transforming the post-apartheid education system.

According to the White Pater, this process requires all hitherto existing practices, institutions and values to be viewed anew and re-thought in terms of their fitness for the new era, i.e. the era of the building of a non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous South Africa in which there is a better life for all. This is the road in search of perfection under continuously changing conditions. This road includes changing our own actions where they do not lead to our intended destination.     

But worst of all about our Professor is that he personalises the changes against and reduces them to the role of one person, the Minister. Very interestingly, or perhaps on the contrary, he also points out at the role a public institution, the parliament, played in bringing about these changes. The Higher Education and Training Laws Amendment Act as an example that our Professor gives was indeed passed through parliament.

On we go. Rensburg concedes to the existence of a problem in universities. He writes that "Some universities are in serious crisis". "In the past few years", he continues, "six institutions had, or still have, administrators appointed". He labels as "Draconian" the measures "required at those institutions" which he says the Minister is now imposing "on all universities".

Well, for the benefit of a doubt our Professor might not have intended to say "Draconian measures required at those institutions" that are in crisis are now being imposed "on all universities". In other words he might not have intended to call for "Draconian measures". Probably he intended to accuse the Minister for adopting the so-called Draconian measures. He might have also wanted to pose a question of differentiation, his argument understood therefore in context as being that those institutions that are in crisis must be addressed according to a specific set of measures which must not be extended to or generalised on all universities. In any way he would still have been wrong in both cases.

In the first place, the measures that the Department of Higher Education and Training as led by Minister Nzimande, which the Higher Education Laws Amendment Act for example was passed not only through but also by parliament, are not "Draconian". These measures seek to strengthen the balance between the institutional autonomy of universities and public accountability. Public universities that are established and funded through state resources must not be allowed to become unaccountable private enterprises as liberals and neoliberals of a special type would like to argue.

After defining institutional autonomy, which is "with respect to student admissions, curriculum, methods of teaching and assessment, research, establishment of academic regulations and internal management of resources generated from private and public sources", and not as an unbridled universal phenomenon, White Paper 3 of 1997 turns on public accountability in no uncertain terms. It clearly states that:

The Principle of public accountability implies that institutions are answerable for their actions and decisions not only to their own governing bodies and the institutional community but also to the broader society. Firstly, it requires that institutions receiving public funds should be able to report how, and how well, money has been spent. Secondly, it requires that institutions should demonstrate the results they achieve with the resources at their disposal. Thirdly, it requires that institutions should demonstrate how they have met national policy goals and priorities.       

Note the phrases in bold: "answerable for their actions and decisions", not some; "and how well", not just how; "with the resources at their disposal", all and not excluding resources sourced from private sources; and "national policy goals and priorities", not just their individual mission statements. Summarised, Rensburg has a problem with public accountability. He argues that the "public" is confused with the state", in other words, thereby mistaking accountability to the public for accountability to the state. What is this if not itself confusion, especially unexplained?

In a democracy such as ours, national policy and priorities are set by democratically elected institutions of the state, for example the parliament and government, each in accordance with its defined set of separate but continuously connected powers, a theme we could address elsewhere at a convenient time. It is the public that elects these institutions of the state and approves of the mandate that they have. This is embedded in processes of public participation, involving consultation, and accountability, among other "checks and balances" of you like.

For example, universities are not allocated funds by an abstract public. It is the government as an institution or branch of the state that allocates funds to universities on behalf of the public. Conversely, it likewise has equal responsibility to enforce public accountability as formerly defined.      

As Karl Marx, who Rensburg quotes without telling us from which work, and I am returning to this in due course, cautions us in ‘The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte', that "as in private life one differentiates between what a man thinks and says of himself and what he really is and does", at least two points relating to the essential character of our honourable Professor's attack on the Minister of Higher Education and Training reveal themselves. Rensburg subordinates public accountability to institutional autonomy, saying that he is striking a balance between the two. He also hollows out the state, which he equates to universities, of the role that it has to play in its relationship to the public and with universities.

Let us proceed to the question of differentiation. Rensburg would argue that the legislative amendments that came with the Higher Education and Training Laws Amendment Act lack differentiation, which means that they generalise measures that must be applied to institutions that are in crisis. Section 49A of the Higher Education Act as amended in 2012 adopts a differentiated approach on the intervention of the Minister.

There are six conditions differentiating the interventions that require intervention: financial impropriety or mismanagement, inability to perform functions, unfair or discriminatory or inequitable conduct, failure to comply with law, failure to comply with the Higher Education Act or certain conditions, obstruction to the Minister or person authorised by the Minister in performing a function in terms of the Higher Education and Training Act. Why would a university that is not involved or affected by any one of these conditions that leave much to be desired have the sort of the problem that Rensburg has? There would be something trivial if not sinister in such a university, unless proven otherwise.

In trying everything to avoid public accountability or subordinate it to institutional autonomy of universities, some if not all of the complaints in Rensburg's opinion piece end up contradictory if not abandoning the sense that they claim to represent. 

Rensburg writes that the powers of the independent assessor provided for in the Higher Education Act were not spelled out, which is true. He then condemns the spelling out of these powers, which is done under Section 45A of the Act as amended in 2012. In the first place it was under-development to provide for an institution without spelling out its powers and functions and how it must go about exercising them.  

Rensburg also writes that "Since 1994, student enrolments in universities have almost doubled without a concomitant increase in the academic staffing establishment. Instead, the administrative staffing cohort has expanded to enable universities to manage the reporting requirements imposed by an increasingly bureaucratised state concerned with administrative rather than substantive compliance".

To what extent does it make sense as our honourable Professor does to attribute a supposedly 18-years old problem, if indeed such exists, to three sets of regulatory interventions adopted only in "recent months"? The history of universities in South Africa predates 1994. Does Rensburg tell us that prior to 1994 the academic staff compliment was increasing or has he become one of those who are arguing that the pre-1994 period was better than the post-1994 period? Answers in the affirmative are inconceivable about our honourable Professor, who has been regarded by many, one included, as one of the progressive university managers we have ever had.

But the use of being regarded as such to argue things that are not progressive could erode that status and engender a new perception. Let alone the problematic content of the unfortunate opinion piece, Rensburg was not known before of the style of work involving the route he has undertaken instead of engaging directly with the with the Department of Higher Education and Training.

Let us conclude where our honourable Professor concludes. He refers us to the north of South Africa where he says "few universities can be said to offer outstanding higher education". The north of South Africa is a globally vast area. The scaring-type statement Rensburg makes must be literally incorrect. Often Zimbabwe, which our esteemed Professor does not mention per se as one of the countries located in South Africa's global north, is used as a scary tactic about the direction of things in South Africa. Up until now this too has failed to make sense.. The country he mentions in South Africa's global north is Margaret Thatcher's era Britain. This is where he quotes Karl Marx but all irrelevantly.

Rensburg writes that "Perhaps Nzimande should reflect on the damaging and ideologically driven corporatisation of universities under Margaret Thatcher and remember Karl Marx's memorable phrase: history repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce". Is the Department of Higher Education and Training under Minister Nzimande driving corporatisation of universities? That is inconceivable! The threat embedded in the Professor's assertion has no material basis in validity, to say the least, although all progressive and revolutionary forces must not fold their arms.

There must be no turning back in advancing transformation in higher education. The opinion piece by our esteemed Professor should at least remind us that unbridled institutional autonomy can plunge our post-school education into crisis. By the way that is partly how many of the universities that are in crisis accrued it over the years and the pace of transformation has been slow, all as a result of the abuse if not misuse of autonomy to block public accountability. For this unintended reminder let us thank our Professor.   

Electricity price hikes. Refusing to bear the sins of our elites

By Irvin Jim

Amongst theologians there is an unresolved debate about the accuracy and correctness of the interpretation of scriptures that parents' iniquities will be visited on their children. This debate does not seem exist when it comes to electricity pricing in South Africa. Customers and electricity consumers are meant to pay for wrong policy choices made by political and economic elites. A scrutiny of Eskom's application to the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) for tariff increases will reveal that policy miscalculations of the past are the drivers of the key cost components of the third multi-year price determination (MYPD 3). We are asked to pay for failure to make timely decisions to build power stations and for a belief which elitesreligiously held in 1990's and early 2000's that the private sector through independent power producers (IPPs) will finance and provide new generation capacity.

Now that the dreams of ‘liberalised electricity markets' have come to nil, Eskom must shoulder the bulk of the provision of the much needed infrastructure. To execute the build programme, the electricity utility borrows on domestic and international capital markets; an exercise that requiresstrengthened credit ratings. Unfortunately the country's legal and methodological basis of electricity pricing not only enables a power producer "to recover the full cost of its licensed activities, including a reasonable margin or return", but gives the right to the regulator to pass onto consumers and customers some of the costs that Eskom incurs. If Nersa approves Eskom's application, as customers and electricity consumers we will in the next five years contribute topayment of the utility's debts; projected to be over R333-billion. The regulator ensures our contribution to clearing such debt by offloading depreciation onto allowed revenue and byguaranteeing Eskom a return on assets calculated on the basis of a regulatory asset base, and that includes work under construction. Jointly, returns and depreciation constitute the biggest component (34%) of revenue requirements for MYPD 3. Eskom is asking the regulator to pass onto customers between 2013 and 2018 a whopping R372-billion for depreciation and return on assets.

If the MYPD 3 application gets Nersa's nod, it will not be the first time that customers and consumers are paying for Eskom's expansion programmes. The previous two multi-year price determinations have already resulted in more than a doubling of electricity prices over a six year period; an increase which policymakers see as necessary to address Eskom's highly leveraged position. National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) members in smelters havealso borne the brunt of desperate attempts to manage the pressure on the grid and supply-demand balances. In addition to its normal demand-side management programmes, over the last twelve months the electricity utility embarked on temporary buy-back contracts with large industrial customers under the demand response aggregation pilot programme (DRAPP). Between December 2011 and May last year, Eskom spent R1, 8-billion purchasing power as smelters shut furnaces and reduced their electricity consumption. The consequence of all of this has been extended periods where our members who work for Eskom's key industrial customers were subjected short time and lay-offs.

But more cynical is the expectation that despite our objections to a private sector-driven renewable energy independent power producer programme, we should pay for Eskom's renewable energy purchases from IPPs. 3% of the average 16% increase in electricity tariffs over the next five years will be for Eskom to buy renewable energy from private sector independent power producers. Gone is retort from policymakers that the "private sector bears all the risk" that we received when we objected to a private sector-driven renewables programme. Through power purchase agreements, IPPs will rake about R78-billion from Eskom. And we customers and consumers will pay this amount!

In place of the sadistic approach that punishes workers and consumers for ideologically-driven mistakes of policymakers, Numsa proposes that as a country in line with the Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) 2010-2030, we should in the next three years move to a 20-year electricity pricing model and replace the current practice of short-term multi-year price determinations. While finalising such a move, Nersa should between 2013 and 2016 only grant Eskom inflation-related increases.

Such a shift would be in line with Deputy-President Kgalema Montlanthe's announcement in the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) in March 2012 of the establishment an interdepartmental team to determine an appropriate price path for South Africa's electricity industry. Besides being in tandem with long-term planning that the electricity sector requires, a move to a 20-year electricity pricing model will provide certainty and space to review our electricity pricing policies. More importantly it will also allow us the opportunity to cleanse our electricity policies of all the neo-liberal traits that were introduced in the 1990s and make sure that we come up with an electricity price trajectory that is in line with other economic and social policies.

It is therefore tragic that we have in front of us an application for the next five year before the tabling of the report of the task team that the Deputy-President announced. To us and our members, this approach looks and sounds like the proverbial putting of the cart before the horse.

Irvin Jim is the General Secretary of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa)