Volume 13, No. 13, 3 April 2014

In this Issue: ANC Lives, ANC Leads: The poverty and political bankruptcy of RSA opposition and its media cheerleaders Nkandla: Who is responsible and accountable for public finances? Do it for Madiba, Vote ANC! Do it for Chris Hani, Vote ANC!

Red Alert ANC Lives, ANC Leads: The poverty and political bankruptcy of RSA opposition and its media cheerleaders

By Cde Blade Nzimande

Often the opposition parties in South Africa, supported by sections of South African media lament about the lack of leadership in our movement and society. But perhaps the biggest weakness of our democracy is not lack of leadership in the ANC and society, but the bankruptcy of the opposition parties and the dangerous cheerleading done by sections of the media often hypocritically celebrating this mediocrity and bankruptcy. Perhaps the paucity of serious debates about the direction our country should take arises out of the fact that there are no substantive issues with which as the ANC we can seriously engage with from the opposition. This opposition, together with its media cheerleaders, are more informed by an agenda to dislodge the ANC from power than on how to build a better South Africa, especially for the overwhelming majority of South Africans.

Just a few facts. Through the leadership of the ANC we have virtually eliminated the violence sponsored by the apartheid regime in KwaZulu Natal and elsewhere. We correctly attribute this to Madiba, but conveniently forget it was President Zuma who was sent by Madiba and the ANC NEC to lead this effort. Through the ANC`s principled commitment to the primacy of the unity of the African people as the glue to building a broader South African national unity, we have made huge strides towards national unity. Some of our Cuban comrades often remind us that nowhere else in any part of the world has any government built, for free, more than 3 million houses for the poor in a 20 year period compared to what we have done since 1994! The ANC government has stubbornly stuck to its spending on, inter alia, education over the last five years despite being in the midst of one of the worst global economic crises since the 1930s. That President Zuma has tripled the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) from R3.1bn in 2009 to R9.6bn in 2014 is not only a good story to tell, but also displays a serious commitment to the working class and the poor by the ANC-led government.

The political bankruptcy of the opposition in South Africa is only matched by its hypocrisy. At the heart of the bankruptcy of opposition politics in our country is that it is unable to offer any credible or better policies than the ANC. Nor can any of the opposition parties claim such a record and service to the South African people. That South Africa is a much better place than it was in 1994 is an indisputable fact! And that we are in a better place because of the leadership provided by the ANC to society cannot be challenged. Instead the opposition parties can only make fools of themselves by suddenly discovering that Presidents Mandela and Mbeki were the best compared to President Zuma.

What has the opposition been up to in the midst of all this? Let`s illustrate the hypocrisy on their current pre-occupation, the Nkandla report. The two previous Public Protectors, Justice Selby Baqwa and Lawrence Mushwana, in their capacities as public protectors, were largely mauled by the DA and its predecessors, and virtually by all the opposition parties, including media cheerleaders.  There was no injunction to anyone to stop criticising the Public Protectors at the time. With due respect, when the two previous public protectors were being viciously attacked by the DA, neither Archbishop Tutu and Archbishop Thabo Mokgoba nor Advocate Bizos came to their defence as they are doing now with Madonsela. The danger with all this is that it confirms what many of us have been suspecting that there is no principled defence of the rule of law in all this, but it is about discrediting the ANC government, and particularly President Zuma. Similarly there is no principled fight against corruption, but an oppositionist fight. Some of us have to be convinced otherwise. If the Public Protector finds wrong with government, especially against President Zuma, she is a hero not so much because there is a principled fight against corruption.

Recently there has been rims of editorials and gallons of ink instructing all and sundry to accept Thuli Madonsela`s Nkandla report. Yet the South African National Editors Forum (SANEF), as far back as June 2001, not only heavily criticised then Public Protector, now Justice Selby Baqwa, for refusing recording and broadcasting equipment into one hearing on the arms deal, but also threatened to take him to court. The same SANEF family, some 13 years later, not only tells us that the Public Protector must be listened to without question, but they gladly accepted Madonsela`s instruction for them not to bring electronic recording devices such as tablets, laptops and cell phones into  a "locked up" press briefing on the Nkandla report. Where is the principle here? Again the moral guardians of our constitution were conspicuously silent on this.

Let us listen to Helen Zille in 2008 against the Public Protector Advocate Lawrence Mushwana

"Mushwana`s record, and that of his predecessor, Selby Baqwa, encapsulates everything that is wrong with the ANC`s policy of deploying party cadres to institutions supposed to check and balance state power. Just like Baleka Mbete`s role as both Speaker and ANC National Chairperson, Mushwana`s position is a fundamental conflict of interest. Both owe their loyalty to the ANC first and to the Constitution second. They are living examples of Jacob Zuma`s contention that "the ANC is even more important than the Constitution." Absolute silence when Zille said all this as it was also the case in the earlier period when Tony Leon viciously attacked Justice Selby Baqwa!"

Yet, today we are told that we must uncritically endorse whatever Thuli Madonsela says as part of respecting our institutions supporting democracy. The DA`s cheerleaders in the media see absolutely no double standards or contradiction in this, because for them the rule of law is only when the ANC and government are being criticised. Not so long ago, Zille threatened to take legal action against Madonsela when she gave a provisional report pointing at corruption in the DA`s tender on public relations. In fact Zille had this to say about the Public Protector:

"A provisional report, drafted for the Public Protector, into the Western Cape Government`s ‘alleged improper procurement of communications services` was leaked to the media a week before the agreed deadline for our response. This in itself is highly irregular, and prejudices our right to rectify what our Senior Counsel, Advocate Geoff Budlender, believes to be material legal errors in the draft report, before the report is finalised. Without casting aspersions on the Public Protector herself, we believe this premature leak prejudices the administration of justice and compromises our rights".

But what is even more breath-taking is the arrogance of Zille and assumption that the Public Protector will correct what she disagrees with:

"I will be making all of these, and other points, to the Public Protector myself when I meet her later this week in order to give her the opportunity to rectify the report before she finalises it under her name".

Indeed Madonsela changed her final report! And there was stunning silence from our self-appointed moral police and advocates of the rule of law when this happened. There was no criticism of Zille for challenging the Public Protector!

Selective criticism or support of our constitutional Institutions on the basis of whether they criticise ANC-led government or not is as dangerous as disrespecting these institutions. It is important to consistently point out that the rule of law is indivisible, whether it is under President Mandela or President Zuma. The surest way of discrediting our institutions of democracy is selective support and morality, which is often opportunistic and unprincipled.

For the media cheerleaders, as long as you are against the ANC you remain a moral and political hero even if you face serious charges in the trade union movement or even irrespective of how many millions of rands you have stolen from SARS. In the 1980s, at the height of apartheid repression, most of the media were apologists of the apartheid regime. In my home town of Dambuza, we derisively referred to the media under apartheid as "Amanga Abelungu". Unfortunately, this still remains the case for sections of our media untransformed today! Akuzona izindaba, Kepha amang`abelungu!

Fortunately our people are not stupid, they can see through all this bankruptcy and hypocrisy, as they will emphatically demonstrate with their vote on 7 May 2014.

All the above was important to point out, as it illustrates the bankruptcy of our opposition and their cheerleaders in the media. Because they have no message of hope for our people, they were hoping that their biggest weapon against the ANC was the Public Protector`s report on the security upgrades at the President`s homestead. Despite the fact that this report is not exactly the same as the leaked report, the opposition is trying to milk it as much as possible, even to the point of attempting to elevate Chapter 9 institutions above the executive arm of government. For instance the likes of Richard Calland and Lawson Naidoo are claiming that Madonsela`s report is more credible than that of the Security cluster of Ministers, because the Public Protector`s Office is a constitutional body, as if the President and the Executive are not prescribed for in Chapter Five of the Constitution. This is a blatant bastardisation of our Constitution, if not outright disinformation and deliberate distortion of facts, and rather rich coming from self-appointed guardians of the rule of law!

Nowhere in both the Ministers` and the Public Protector`s report does it say the President`s homestead was built by the state. Nor had the President asked for any security upgrades at his House. Nowhere has the President also been found to have misled Parliament. In fact the biggest hole in the Public Protector`s report might as well be that there is a serious disjuncture between her findings and the conclusions. That the provision of the security upgrades were inflated is known to all. The nature and extent of this inflation (and corruption) is a matter that is already being investigated by the Special Investigation Unit (SIU) as appointed by the President.

As the SACP we have called upon for a full investigation into possible corruption, not only at Nkandla, but in all of government`s contracts and tenders. Such an investigation must equally focus on both public officials and the private sector, especially the construction industry. We wish the opposition could equally call for special parliamentary sittings when private construction companies fleece the state around FIFA World Cup tenders!

In fact some of the opposition parties are so politically bankrupt such that they would long have died a natural death were it not for the fact that they have been living on ideological steroids - uncritical support from sections of South African media; amang`abelungu!

It is for the above and many other reasons that the SACP describes the DA for what it is, a party of white privilege that speaks from both sides of its mouth when it comes to matters of affirmative action, black economic empowerment, and fighting racism. Respectively, the EFF is nothing but a party of tenderpreneurs with serious neo-fascist inclinations. Attempts by all these parties to try and use the Public Protector`s report on Nkandla will be exposed for what it is - an electioneering gimmick that has nothing to do with the fight against corruption. The opposition parties have no good story to tell, nothing!

The ANC Lives, ANC Leads!

Cde. Blade Nzimande is SACP General Secretary

Nkandla: Who is responsible and accountable for public finances?

By Cde. Sikhumbuzo Thomo

The purpose of the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) is to regulate financial management in national government and provincial governments; to ensure that all revenue, expenditure, assets and liabilities of those governments are managed efficiently and effectively; to provide for the responsibilities of persons entrusted with financial management in those governments; and to provide for matters connected therewith.

The PFMA and its related Treasury Regulations entrusts the responsibility of public finances to the accounting officer of a department. Sections 38, 39 and 40 of the PFMA broadly outlines these responsibilities of the accounting officer.

Section 38 of the PFMA requires that the accounting officer and in this case the Director-General has and maintains the following:

• effective, efficient and transparent systems of financial and risk management and internal control;
• an appropriate procurement and provisioning system which is fair, equitable, transparent, competitive and cost-effective;
• a system for properly evaluating all major capital projects prior to a final decision on the project;
• is responsible for the effective, efficient, economical and transparent use of the resources of the department, trading entity or constitutional institution;
• must take effective and appropriate steps to prevent unauthorised, irregular and fruitless and wasteful expenditure and losses resulting from criminal conduct;
• must take effective and appropriate disciplinary steps against any official in the service of the department, who
  • contravenes or fails to comply with a provision of this Act;
  • commits an act which undermines the financial management and internal control system of the department, trading entity or constitutional institution; or
  • makes or permits an unauthorised expenditure, irregular expenditure or fruitless and wasteful expenditure;
• may not commit a department to any liability for which money has not been appropriated.

Section 39 of the PFMA outlines the accounting officer`s responsibility relating to budgetary control. The accounting officer of a department is responsible for ensuring that

• the expenditure of that department is in accordance with the vote of the department and the main divisions within the vote; and
• effective and appropriate steps are taken to prevent unauthorised expenditure.

Section 40 of the PFMA outlines the reporting responsibilities of the accounting officer which includes keeping full and proper proper records of the financial affairs of the department in accordance with any prescribed norms and standards.

To assist the accounting officer in carrying out his/her responsibilities, the Treasury Regulations"Part 2: Management Responsibilities” prescribes that every department must have a chief financial officer that is directly accountable to the accounting officer, an audit committee and internal audit.

According to section 44 of the PFMA, the accounting officer may in writing delegate any of the powers entrusted or delegated to the accounting officer in terms of the PFMA to an official in that department.

What is the Minister`s responsibility relating to public finances?

Section 63, 64 and 65 of the PFMA outlines the financial responsibilities of executive authorities.

Of importance, section 64 of the PFMA states the following:

• Any directive by an executive authority of a department to the accounting officer of the department having financial implications for the department must be in writing.
• If implementation of the directive is likely to result in unauthorised expenditure, the accounting officer will be responsible for any resulting unauthorised expenditure unless the accounting officer has informed the executive authority in writing of the likelihood of that unauthorised expenditure.
• Any decision of the executive authority to proceed with the implementation of the directive, and the reasons for the decision, must be in writing, and the accounting officer must promptly file a copy of this document with the National Treasury and the Auditor-General.

Chapter 5 of the Treasury Regulations indicates that the executive authority of a department is responsible for approving the department`s strategic plan.

What is an unauthorised expenditure?

Unauthorised expenditure is defined within the PFMA:

1. overspending of a vote or a main division within a vote;
2. expenditure not in accordance with the purpose of a vote or, in the case of a main division, not in accordance with the purpose of the main division;

Paragraph (b) of the definition is worth expanding on as it is important to understand that each department plays a unique role in carrying out its mandate. For example Department A cannot incur expenditure that is related to Department B.

Nkandla project

In relation to the report by the Public Protector it is therefore important to understand what the roles of the Departments of Public Works and the Police were.

Department of Police

The Department of Police was responsible for security assessment of the President`s private residence as it is within their mandate to do so.

Then the question that should be answered by the investigation of the Public Protector is: Who within the Department of Police approved the security assessment and did the official have the delegated authority to conduct such an assessment? The response to this question would be a perfect example of illustrating the functions undertaken under the PFMA as highlighted above. The security assessment and approval thereof was critical in determining the extent of the upgrades at the President`s private residence.

Department of Public Works

The Department of Public Works (DPW) through its trading entity (PMTE) was responsible for carrying out the security upgrades at the President`s private residence."Construction", a programme within DPW would have been responsible for managing this project.

Procedurally, the Nkandla project investigation by the Public Protector should have been dealt with like any other construction project within DPW and the accounting officer at DPW was responsible for ensuring that sections 38, 39 and 40 of the PFMA were fully adhered to, NOT any other person as the"findings” would like us to believe. This includes that all tender/procurement processes for the appointment of project managers and contractors were fully adhered to, not who was present at some meeting for instance regardless whether that presence did not amount to making of influencing any decision. Understanding all these matters, the provisions of the PFMA and Treasury Regulations, the Public Works Minister and the Ministers of the Security Cluster have taken full responsibility of the entire Nkandla security upgrades, stating correctly that the President had nothing to do with any decisions taken or measures implemented.

Other considerations

• Were the security upgrades in line with the approved security assessment? Has this security assessment been done by competent person (with official security clearance from the relevant authority or state organ) in the Office of the Public Protector in relation to among other things the National Key Points Act, and the 2006 cabinet decision on securing the President, the Deputy President and all former heads of state?
• The Auditor-General has reported qualified and disclaimer audit opinions over the last few years for both DPW and PMTE. This highlighted the serious weaknesses in the financial control and procurement environments including procurement irregularities that resulted in irregular expenditure. The handling of the Nkandla project by DPW and PMTE also illustrated these weaknesses, hence the deployment of the current Executive Authority and his Deputy to this National Department by the President to clean and mop this up. The Public Works Minister has actively been tackling these issues including corruption first by exposing the weakness.
• Which department budgeted for and carried the costs of the Nkandla project? Whilst DPW manages all construction projects, PMTE recovers all construction costs from the user department. A receivable is recorded in the books of PMTE. Why is there a deafening silence or an omission on this in the findings?
• What are the implications of the President`s private residence being declared a National Key Point?
• The Executive Members` Ethics Act 82 of 1998 does not say that the Public Protector is a member of the Executive in relation to reporting procedures? Yes in the Act he/she is delegated to investigate any member of the Executive and table his/her findings either to the Premier in an event it is the MEC or the President in case it is either a deputy minister or a minister. The Act that governs the Office of the Public Protector is the Public Protector Act of 1994 and section 182 in the Constitution as adopted in 1996 that clearly stipulates the role of that Office.

Given all these, a question arises why the Public Protector`s report would straggle the lanes in terms of due processes to be followed. Among these she conflates between the Executive Authority and Accounting Officers` line functions in all regulatory framework (such as mentioned above) and bungle these with the role of the Head of State.

Cde Sikhumbuzo Thomo is a member of the ANC and the SACP and writes in his own personal capacity

Do it for Madiba, Vote ANC! Do it for Chris Hani, Vote ANC!

Let us close ranks - let us unite and give no quarter both to the old and new enemies of our alliance and national liberation movement, by defeating the arrogant Party of white privilege and racist exploitation of workers the DA; let us equally defeat demagogue tenderpreneurs the EFF!

The SACP calls on the workers to close ranks! The SACP says let us close ranks at the workplace, in the community and everywhere in society! Let us unite and rally behind the African National Congress (ANC) and our Alliance as comprising of the ANC, SACP, Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the South African National Civic Organisation (Sanco).

The working class - the entire workface of our country, consisting of the employed and all the people who make a living from their own labour, the unemployed and the poor, has played a crucial role in our national liberation struggle and the defeat of apartheid twenty years ago in the achievement of democratic breakthrough in 1994.

There is absolutely no reason to abstain from defending and deepening the advances we have achieved since the beginning of our struggle and 1994 democratic breakthrough. Similarly, there is no reason to adopt divisions and destroy the unity of our Alliance and the entire liberation movement which is led by the ANC. In the first place it is through our unity as a people who suffered oppression and exploitation working together with other revolutionaries and democrats that we defeated apartheid. This unity remains critical for us to take South Africa forward and make more advances.

Now is not the time to allow the working class to be distracted by internal divisions or cults of the personality or any narrow interests. Electoral absenteeism amounts to an abandonment of the trenches of class struggle. Divisions and electoral absenteeism will not serve the interests of the working class, but the interests of those who are opposed to our national democratic revolution - a process of struggle and change which aims to achieve the complete political liberation of the historically oppressed and the economic and social emancipation of all regardless of race and sex.

Our national democratic revolution seeks to eliminate the injustices of the colonial and apartheid past and to transform our country into a united, non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous society in which there is a better life for all. No frustration, disappointment, unhappiness or personality cult can be big enough to justify working class desertion from this critical terrain of struggle.

When the working class is divided:

• Monopoly capital laughs all the way to the bank;
• The SABC is looted by tenderpreneurs;
• Profit greedy private health care erodes the prospects of rolling out the National Health Insurance (NHI);
• Private media oligopolies continue to block digital migration as they squabble among themselves for dominance. Private communication oligopolies continue to rip us off, charging among the highest cell-phone fees in the world;
• The corrupt and their corrupters feel safer, knowing that the organised working class is distracted.

The SACP calls on the workers and the poor to use the election campaign to take back the moral high ground, to close ranks and roll back the corrupting domination of monopoly capital on our society.

There are some who portray themselves as worker leaders, but they are focusing all their attention on fighting internal factional battles, and on opposition to the African National Congress (ANC) led government and the Alliance. By advocating electoral absenteeism whilst attacking the primary political formations of our Alliance the ANC and SACP and de-campaigning the ANC, they are playing directly into the hands of unbridled personal and factional ambitions, opportunist organisations such as those formed by tenderpreneurs, and the DA - the party of big capital and white privilege.

On May 7 - let us teach the DA, the arrogant party of monopoly capital and minority privilege a powerful lesson

We call on the working class to deliver a decisive electoral defeat on the DA:

• A party that opposed farmworkers minimum wage being raised from R65 a day
• A party that supports labour brokers
• A party that wants to roll back hard-won labour market legislation in favour of a “flexible labour market”;
• A party that portrays Cosatu as the enemy, and marches on its head-office
• A party of hypocrisy that speaks out of two sides of its mouth on black economic empowerment and on land reform, a party that fudges its silent approval of the Zionist apartheid wall in Palestine.
• A party that is seeking to disguise its conservative minority white electoral machine and its neo-liberal agenda behind parachuted black faces and a newly discovered support for ANC presidents of the past.

The DA is a party financially supported by the likes of Natie Kirsh who made his fortune in SA by exploiting township traders and collaborating with despotic feudalism in Swaziland. This is the Natie Kirsh whose company Magal Security Systems supplies intrusion detecting devices to the Israeli Defence Force for the construction of the apartheid wall in West Bank. The wall has been declared illegal by the International Court of Justice. But not only does the DA (like Agang) take dirty money from Kirsh, it takes instructions from him as well. It was Kirsh who instructed Zille and Ramphele to join up in their ill-fated marriage.

We call on the working class - Come out in your large numbers to deliver a massive electoral blow to this party of big capital and white privilege. Electoral abstenteeism simply plays into the hands of this retrograde anti-worker party.

On May 7 - let us also deal a decisive electoral blow against the EFF - the party led by the most corrupt tenderpreneurs

Workers are not fooled by these loud-mouthed demagogues, these tenderpreneurs in red berets who not only plagiarised our identities and ideas from our Progressive Youth Movement comprising of the ANC Youth League, Young Communist League of South Africa and student organisations Congress of South African Students and South African Student Congress. 

These loud-mouthed demagogues and tenderpreneurs in red berets have never done an honest day’s work, so where do they get their fancy cars, their Breitling watches? Where do they get their campaign funding? Africa and the world have seen this kind of clowning before. But it is a mistake to just laugh it off - the Hitlers and Mussolinis rose to prominence demagogically sprouting “socialism”, and then butchering the working class when in power.

The EFF practices the same kind of demagogy that we are seeing playing itself out on the platinum belt at present. The EFF like AMCU hijacks real grievances but for entirely self-serving leadership purposes. Wild promises are made for which there is no capacity to deliver leading inevitably to the crushing defeat of gullible followers. A second slow bleeding Marikana tragedy is now playing itself out on the platinum belt.
For all these reasons, we urge workers to come out in their overwhelming numbers to defeat anti-worker right-wing formations - whether they are cloaked in blue or red guises.

We call on workers to vote ANC - but not with a blank cheque

A working class election campaign gives us the opportunity to consolidate and take forward progress made by:

• An ANC-led government that in the last five years has turned the tide against HIV and AIDS and falling life expectancy rate.
• An ANC-led government that rigorously leads HIV and AIDS prevention programme including prevention of mother to child transmission; the government that has made anti-retroviral treatment available for 2.4 million people; the government that has increased life expectancy of more people with an average of 60 years in 2012.
• An ANC-led government that opposes privatisation - because of working class and SACP struggles within the alliance itself.
• A government that has rescued the auto sector in our country through public investment of R22bn in 183 projects, preserving 46,000 jobs and adding 9850 more jobs.
• A government that has led interventions in other industrial sectors including clothing and textiles, imposing a 75 percent local procurement requirement on the public sector.
• It is an ANC-led government which, in the past 5 years, has driven an economic and social infrastructure programme, committing R1-trillion of public spending as a key counter-cyclical intervention in the midst of the gravest global economic crisis since the 1930s.
• A government that has introduced the removal of adverse credit information, coming into effect from 1st April, impacting on some 10 million South Africans suffocated by mashonisas and high bank charges.
• A government that in the face of DA opposition has re-opened the lodgement of land claims, to address the plight of millions of the landless and land hungry
• A government that has provided work opportunities to 4.5 million unemployed South Africans through Expanded Public Works and Community Work programmes.
• A government that has opened the doors of higher learning to hundreds of thousands of more children of the working class with a trebling of the National Students Financial Scheme from R3.1bn in 2009 to the current R9.6bn.

Let us close ranks! Let us roll back monopoly capital! Let us deal decisively with corruption! Let us defeat anti-working class forces!

We have achieved important advances since our 1994 democratic breakthrough, but there is much more to be done.

Let us vote ANC for:

• Jobs and decent work.
• Transformation of the financial sector to serve the people!
• For land and food security.
• Defending and deepening our democracy.
• For NHI and universal quality health care for all.
• Access to quality education and skills development.
• Better housing and basic services for all.

Surely, there are many struggles we must continue with. This should strengthen our government and firmly steel it in the hands of people. It will also contribute in the building of a democratic developmental state that we seek to achieve.

Let us intensify our struggles against labour brokers, and ensure that they are banned. The SACP continues to denounce labour brokering as a practice used by the bosses to deepen the exploitation of workers and render work precarious. Labour brokering denies workers labour market security, employment security, job security and work security. Labour brokering also inhibits income security, social security and social dialogue at work.

The SACP says let us honour the founding revolutionary of our democracy, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela!

Let us honour the revolutionary martyr of our struggle for freedom, Thembisile Chris Hani

Vote ANC!