Two reports on very distinct issue caught my eye this morning. Could this be the wake-up call we need – after an embarrassing week in which we all had to come to grips with the irresponsible and seemingly insatiable appetites of our President? First, the Daily Dispatch – that feisty newspaper in the Eastern Cape who fearlessly exposes the nepotism and corruption of the government in that province - reported that the Eastern Cape provincial Health Department has gone bust with debts of R1.8 billion, and cannot pay creditors or nursing staff their special payments until the new financial year.
As part of a dramatic clean-up of its finances the province will also disband its existing bid evaluation committees, Health Department spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo confirmed. According to the Daily Dispatch the shock announcement is a forerunner to further drastic action when heads may roll and resignations are expected. About time, some would say.
Then I read in a Business Day report that Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe said yesterday (standing in for the rather fatigued President Zuma) that the government could no longer tolerate the current status of Black Economic Empowerment (BEE), which in the past 15 years had benefited a handful of individuals.
“Only a few benefited again and again from the bounty of black economic empowerment,” he said. The “truly marginalised” — women, the rural poor, workers and the unemployed — were left on the sidelines. It was important to look at BBBEE beyond business deals and shareholding in companies, to include equipping people to run their own businesses. “More must be enrolled in skills training and more should have access to arable land.”
Juxtaposing these reports seems to go to the heart of many of the problems faced by South Africa and by the government of the day. Let’s face it: the government seems to be caught between a rock and a hard place.
On the one hand, there is an ethical, political and constitutional imperative to speed up the racial transformation of all sectors of the economy and society (the state having been thoroughly transformed already). This transformation has not happened in the manner one would have wished. A few well-connected individuals have made billions from government contracts and BEE deals and some others have landed cushy government jobs.
But the vast majority of South Africans have not benefited from so called Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) or from affirmative action policies – both because of resistance to racial transformation by certain members of the white community and because of greed and nepotism on the part of members of the new, politically well-connected, elite.
On the other hand, there are grave dangers inherent in speeding up this process of transformation – as the lack of service delivery in the state sector clearly shows. Because we are still struggling with the corrosive consequences of apartheid and the Bantu education system, because our post-apartheid education system is not working properly and are not producing enough highly skilled black graduates and technicians, and because a culture of nepotism, corruption, laziness and greed has taken hold among many who see their friends and family unjustifiably benefiting from BEE deals and government contracts without having had to do any work, the speeding up of transformation often has disastrous consequences.
People who are incompetent, lack the necessary experience and skills or the necessary commitment to service delivery, are often appointed to “affirmative action” posts in the civil service because they happen to have family connections or are close to politicians or senior officials. This leads the kind of mess we now see in the Eastern Cape health department.
Make no mistake (as President Barack Obama likes to say) poor and vulnerable people – like many of the long-suffering citizens of the Eastern Cape who depend on the state health system – suffer most when transformation fails to produce a better life for all. The acknowledgement of our Deputy President that part of the solution is more education and skills training, is therefore a good sign.
At least some in the government (those who have not bought into the tenderpreneurial culture, and the Kebbilism, spouting fake populist slogans while driving around in million Rand cars) understand that given our history and the present state of our education system, there is a tension between the very real need to speed up transformation and the need for effective and efficient service delivery.
The only way to deal with this is to invest financial and human resources into education and training in both the public and the private sector. Teachers who are unable to teach properly should be retrained and those who do well should be rewarded (but for that to happen the government will have to stand up to the South African Democratic Teachers Union, something it is probably too scared to do). Businesses must be forced to invest in training and skills development and ways should be found to punish – rather than reward – the kind of window dressing affirmative action and fronting that some of them engage in.
What we as a society need to do is to agree on some kind of social pact. Some white people who still resist transformation and cannot see that their own interests – along with the interests of their fellow South Africans – depend on the implementation of successful transformation measures, should stop their nonsense and come to the party. We should all confront the explicit or implicit racism that informs the views of such people who often believe deep down that black people are not as capable as whites merely because of the colour of their skins.
But that would not be enough.
Some black people who pretend that there are no skills shortage and that there are no problems with the way in which BEE and affirmative action are sometimes implemented, should face up to these facts and should acknowledge the problems. (Luckily some in the government are already doing so, but they are in a life and death struggle with the tenderpreneurs and Kebbilists who chooses short term personal gain for themselves over long term prosperity for all.)
So why do we not call a truce on this silly debate on affirmative action and BEE and all agree that it is not only an ethical necessity but also an absolute requirement for the long term success of our country? Then we can start to devise ways in which we can implement these policies in a way that will not favour the few greedy Kebbilists, but the majority of us – black and white – who wish to see a prosperous and growing country in which no one goes hungry, everyone has a house and all children (even all the known and unknown children of our President) get a good education that will allow them to reach their full potential.
Prof,
I have been an avid reader of your blog for some time now. Usually I agree with you but have always found that when it comes to affirmative action and BEE I disagree with you quite strongly.
However, now that you have clarified your position, I find that I do agree with most of what you said.
The solution to demographic representivity in the economy is not a forced come hell or high water “reverse-Verwoerdian” transformation, but rather a strong focus on education, apprenticeships and skills transfer.
Just transferring equity (as is the current BEE model) benefits just a few highly placed people with the correct connections.
But with so many ANC policies, they tend to make the right noise, but falls flat when it comes to implementation, so I suppose we’ll see if the ANC actually means business on this or if it is just rhetoric to appease the markets.
It deplorable when the undermining of our economy and the gross exploitation of workers comes from an ANC MP.
http://www.fin24.com/articles/default/display_article.aspx?ArticleId=1518-25_2570095
It does seem clear, as the Professor makes out, that there is a tension in our country that can be articulated thus: the present conception of transformation frustrates the goal of adequate service delivery. That is, corrective justice currently seems to involve wealth being transferred into a few greedy hands as opposed to skills being transferred to many people. Often this is accompanied by people being given public positions to which, strictly speaking, they are not properly competent.
Happily the two abovementioned goals are not necessarily incompatible. And I certainly like the idea of pushing for skills transfer and encouraging people to confront either their untenable positions or their lingering prejudices.
But if the two objects – corrective justice and service provision – are to be successfully married, it could well be that we are going to need strong leadership. In this vein, I wonder whether some enterprising writers could be inspired to publicly compare Zuma’s political attributes to Motlanthe’s. Could it be that we stand a better shot at seeing the two abovementioned objects married on Kgalema’s watch? I tend to think so for two reasons – the first of which is only half serious. First off, almost anyone would be better than Jacob Zuma. Secondly, Kgalema may be a decent option by reasonable reckoning. One does get the impression that Motlanthe can think things through – which is a very far cry from merely pitching up to read a speech before (a) enjoying the finger food and (b) keeping your eye on the ladies. So who thinks I’m full of it? Kgalema to run the set: bollocks or better politics?
I still dont understand why Apartheid is being blamed for the lack of skills. Can somebody please explain this to me? I am not a supporter of Apartheid, I just dont think it is the reason for the lack of skills.
Mark, a starting point might be this entry on Wikipedia on bantu Education:
Bantu Education Act of 1953 (No. 47) was a South African law which codified several aspects of the apartheid system. Its major provision was enforced separation of races in all educational institutions. Even universities were made ‘tribal’, and all but three Missionary schools chose to close down when the government no longer would subsidize their schools. Only Roman Catholics, the Seventh-Day Adventists, & the United Jewish Reform Congregation continued using their own finances to support education for native Africans.[1] In 1959 this type of education was extended to “non white” Universities and Colleges with the Extension of University Education Act, and the internationally prestigious University College of Fort Hare was taken over by the government and degraded to being part of the Bantu education system.[2] The policy of Bantu (African) education was aimed to direct black or non-white youth to the unskilled labor market.[3]
The South Africa’s National Party viewed education to be a key element in their plan to create a completely segregated society. The Minister of Education at the time, Henrik Verwoerd, stated that:
There is no place for [the Bantu] in the European community above the level of certain forms of labour … What is the use of teaching the Bantu child mathematics when it cannot use it in practice? That is quite absurd. Education must train people in accordance with their opportunities in life, according to the sphere in which they live[1]
The government controlled the curriculum of the segregated schools and the books used regularly included sentences such as “This kaffer has stolen a knife, this kaffer is lazy”.[1]
The introduction of Bantu Education led to a huge reduction of government aid to the already ailing learning institutions of black Africans. The law forced institutions under the direct control of the state. The National Party now had the power to employ and train teachers as they saw fit. Black teachers’ salaries in 1953 were extremely low and resulted in a dramatic drop of trainee teachers. Only one third of the black teachers were qualified.[1]
The schools reserved for the country’s white children were of Western standards and the education was both mandatory and free. 30 % of the black schools did not have electricity, 25 % running water and less than half had plumbing. The education for Blacks, Indians and Coloured was not free.[1] In the 70’s the per capita governmental spending on black education was one-tenth of the spending on white.[3]
In 1976 student protests against the Afrikaans Medium Decree of 1974 which forced all black schools to use Afrikaans and English in a 50-50 mix as languages of instruction led to the Soweto uprising in which more than 575 people died, at least 134 of them under the age of eighteen.[4][3]
References
^ a b c d e Clark, Nancy L.; Worger, William H. (2004). South Africa – The Rise and Fall of Apartheid. Seminar Studies in History. Pearson Education Limited. pp. 48–52. ISBN 0-582-41437-7. http://books.google.com/books?id=6JTRPzhoH4cC&printsec=frontcover&dq=isbn=0582414377#PPP1,M1.
^ Timeline of the University: 1959. Official website of University of Fort Hare. Accessed 2007-12-03.
^ a b c Byrnes, Rita M. (1996). South Africa: A Country Study. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress. http://countrystudies.us/south-africa/.
^ Afrikaans Medium Decree
@ Leigh
It might be tempting to compare one leader against the other but I doubt that there is an individual who can introduce meaning ful change in the ANC. If I were to choose between the two Zuma has more clout to make things happen and is the only top leader who is yet to be rebuked by Malema and that should mean something. I am not saying Malema comments are accurate or relevant for that matter.
Phosa and Kgamela seem to be good on getting up the emotions through making the right noises but I am yet to see any action from them. They tend to keep quiet when we need them most and drop oneliners whenever its convinient. I also suspect they might have some contradictions in their closets.
@ Mark
Your diagnosis is one of the major problems we have in this country. Where have you been?
An interesting perpsective on the power of SADTU and how it might hinder good education: http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71639?oid=159080&sn=Detail
Mark says:
February 5, 2010 at 11:41 am
“I still dont understand why Apartheid is being blamed for the lack of skills. Can somebody please explain this to me? I am not a supporter of Apartheid, I just dont think it is the reason for the lack of skills.”
Well Mark my friend, can I call you that ?
I can think of 4 items why apartheid is to blame for the lack of skills.
Do you still remember these 4 below-mentioned pieces of legislation that made sure there are skills disparities :
1. Industrial Conciliation Act
2. Bantu Education Act
3. Extension of University Education Act
4. Bantu Building Workers Act
Apartheid contributed immensely to the lack of skills and the current skills divide in the country.
People always argue that apartheid ended 20 years ago etc etc but the truth of the matter is if you did not get to experience apatheid first hand then you certainly inherited apatheid after-shocks.
We cannot blame Apartheid forever but the problem is certainly not going to dissapear after 20 years especially if took more then 60 years to implement. Whether the current admninistration is the right path or not in addressing these past imbalances then that’s another story altogethor …
But Apartheid is solely to blame for this mess and we should never forget that Mark !
If the government was to stand up to SADTU, now would be a good time. Early in the year so that the learning missed during the inevitable SADTU strike can be caught up. We don’t want another year of youth sacrificed to ideology. Far too many have been sacrificed already, both by apartheid and by the mushroom education of the present government.
On a another tack: AA/BBBEE is the right and just thing to do at the macro level and needs to be supported. But, at the individual level, who decides who is sacrificed at the altar of greater good. Because someone must. There is no way that, in a slow-growing economy (assuming sufficiently skilled black South Africans), that demographic representivity can be achieved within the next 20/30 years without someone loosing out.
Surely this is nothing new – the EC corruption and the failure of BBBEE has been trumpeted by intellectuals, the press and oposition for years. Suddenly the ANC is itself making a noise about it – its probably isnt too late, as long as they actually do something. Agree totally with the sentiments of this article – lets educate and train and empower by that means….
Cope’ selection of battles is very interesting.
This week a team of Dept of Defence managers were chased away from parliament bcoz of their inability to answer questions fired by MP’s. This dept a repeat offender in the AG’s report and was under the stewardship of able minister Lekota for about 4 yrs.
Secondly a task team set up by Nyanda has found Sentech to be unable to meet its objectives. This dept was under DG, L. Shope of Cope who is their Gauteng leader for about 8 yrs . Now Sentech, SABC, ICASA have been on the news for all the wrong reasons and a lot of ICT projects have either missed deadlines or failed e.g Digital Migration, My wireless, Connecting Dinaledi schools, Infraco ETC.
Walking on eggs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@ Tony
Its simple.
First White males next White females next Indians next Coulored and lastly Blacks and we have thru reflection of our demographics.
Some will loose and the growing of the cake will be distributed using the formula above.
http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=1111034
How many classes a BMW 750i can provide?
http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=1111197
We have our priorities right.
I think it’s about 3 years ago that Helen Zille commented that BBBEE is actually legalised corruption.
I agree with her. It’s legally enforced/imposed/compelled corruption.
@ Henri
Were you trying to say BEE instead of BBBEE.
Huge difference between the two.
Pierre:
your observation is not new–there is always a tradeoff between equality (transformation, in the SA case) and efficiency (service delivery). There is simply no way around it. Every society needs to decide where they want to strike the balance, which is more important, where the sacrifices will come.
The ANC obviously decided that equality had to come first. Given the history of South Africa, and the nature of the ANC’s struggle, this is not a surprising choice. The question is, is the population of South Africa now getting sufficiently tired of the lack of efficiency to alter the balance between these? Frankly, I doubt it.
I would recommend this little book by one of the great economists, written back in 1975: http://www.brookings.edu/press/Books/1975/equalityandefficiency.aspx
And therein lies the rub. As much as apartheid was responsible for deliberately curtailing the majority’s education, the ANC has not since acted on it as they should have. In the mid 90’s, with Mandela’s magic, the International community would certainly have come to the table to develop skills colleges and increased educational opportunities. Lowly paid volunteers would have flooded here. Did the ANC identify or even care about their country’s greatest need. I would suggest not.
And why not? I think we all know the answer to that. Fifteen wasted years is a chilling phrase, is it not. Ahh, now it’s sixteen. Perhaps we expect too much.
With respect Pierre, to say that there is a tension between transformation and “efficiency” reflects the odious assumption that “black” equates to “less-skilled.”
As Maggs, Jimmy Manyi, and you youself (in you debates with David Benatar), have pointed out in the past, this is a RACIST LIE!
Black people may indeed have been disadvantaged by Bantu Ed. But thanks to the superb education system created in 1994, they have now CAUGHT UP! (This is the good news that we dare not deny.)
Finally, as Maggs has so convincingly suggested, the argument that brain surgery, Boeing-flying or Advocacy demands special “skills” is nothing but a MYTHOLOGY designed to keep blacks out.
Pierre, I agree wholeheartedly with your suggestion that “affirmative action and BEE [are not] only an ethical necessity but also an absolute requirement for the long term success of our country.”
Something else that needs to be said of AA : it, and other race-conscious remedies, are unfortunate necessities, not practices to be celebrated, and expanded into every sphere of human activity.
The experience in the US teaches that the benefits of AA in the short term are modest. There, as here, AA has tended to help mostly those who are already relatively privileged, the middle classes. It is irrelevent to those effectively locked out of the economy, not by virtue of contemporarary racism, but because of historic patterns of exclusion that have deprived them of the skills necessary to participate in a modern capitalist order..
For the lumpenproletariat, the only form of AA that could be effective would be immediate, forcible, redistribution of historically accumulated capital. In other words, some form of the socialism that sectors in the ANC once pretended to believe in.
What exactly do we want to transform into? Can we become a non-racial, diverse society by accepting and promoting institutionalised racism and by feverishly chasing after homogenisation? The arguments against such ill-conceived policies are so widely available it pains me to see our country striving to be the first nation to successfully implement these. I suppose it will follow on the heels of our successful implementation of communism.
That being said, I do recognise the importance and obvious benefits of economic empowerment, but it cannot happen on the back of racist policies like BEE and it certainly cannot happen without setting clearly defined and challenging goals for the beneficiaries. Poverty is a disease and no amount of “redistribution” is going to cure it. People need to be challenged.
One concern is the mention of finding new ways to punish non-compliance. If it was not so sad it would be laughable. We are a society obsessed with punishment and the only thing we are producing is clever new ways of avoiding punishment. If we invested the same amount of energy in finding (or building) and supporting decent leaders we would not have half the problems we now face. It will always be easier to lead people rather than force them.
In any society, let alone one as ultra complex as South Africa, only win win situations will come to successful fruition in the end. There needs to be a balance for success. That balance is not possible with any exclusions, such as we have now. I do not contest the need for some form of BEE or BBBEE, or the need for affirmative action in general. I only suggest it has not been well thought out or implemented. It has been nothing less than greed, me first, and rule of the jungle.
As an analogy; one cannot turn over a university to management by a kindergarten. It simply doesn’t work. There must be a gradual advancement sponsored by those who have the skills teaching those who don’t, along with the pertinent understanding that all will benefit through such a process. It was too fast. Capitulation rarely, if ever, works.
Successful growth would have been possible, if in 94 the emphasis had been put on education and skills development. Because this was not the case, I don’t hold the past, apartheid, responsible, but rather the short-sighted greed of the administration which took power. With all the black intelligentsia available in the 90’s, why did the emphasis on education not happen.
It is still the principal need, and the best bet for success of a multi racial South Africa living at peace with each other.
Mikhail Dworkin Fassbinder says:
February 6, 2010 at 8:11 am
“Finally, as Maggs has so convincingly suggested, the argument that brain surgery, Boeing-flying or Advocacy demands special “skills” is nothing but a MYTHOLOGY designed to keep blacks out.”
Ja ne.
The special skills that manifest in legal professionals like Visser and Prinsloo.
Or the son and niece of a cell phone giant having inherited the special skills to run multi-million rand operations, despite evidence otherwise.
Or the special skill of the Nedbank proxy:
“Nedbank apparently had an informal agreement with De Beer allowing him to vote the shares Nedbank owned by proxy. De Beer did in fact carry a proxy from Nedbank in certain shareholder meetings. However, there was no formal agreement handing over the voting rights to De Beer.
De Beer was sequestrated in 1997 and was later found by the department of trade and industry to have been running a pyramid scheme.”
http://www.timeslive.co.za/business/article294484.ece
It’s interesting that Ntai ends up in the main pages for an alleged transgression yet this quietly slips into oblivion http://www.eyewitnessnews.co.za/articleprog.aspx?id=31883
It takes the “special skills” to keep the anti-Black flag flying high, Dworky – you’re doing extremely well at it.
Here’s that “special skills” required for successful cattle farming Dworky.
http://blogs.dispatch.co.za/dispatchnow/2010/02/06/stutt-farmer-arrested-for-stock-theft/
Maggs, with respect, do not make of the truth your enemy.
The fact is that Bantu Education was no nearly as bad as Verwoerd hoped it would be.
Despite everything. Bantu Ed, and the “Bush colleges,” managed to produce a generation quite ready to step into the skilled positions needed in a modern economy!
Thank goodness!
no = not
Mikhail Dworkin Fassbinder says:
February 7, 2010 at 11:09 am
hahaha – nice try Dworky.
Some of those examples I posted show how well those skilled positions have been filled with “skills” that you would like maintained.
You’re just scared of the dark!
It seems that you’re right after all Dworky.
It seems special skills are needed after all (as best as I can make out with google translate).
http://www.nuus24.com/Content/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/1479/9e6a280dc6024cf49337c9c03f08b597/07-02-2010-01-21/Beleggers_verloor_R500_milj
Maggs, if we are ever going to escape from the burdens of our terrible past, we must throw off the polarising effects of racial prejudice.
Your assumption that blacks are the eternal “victims” of apartheid education is the mind-set that makes progress impossible.
Mikhail Dworkin Fassbinder says:
February 7, 2010 at 13:56 pm
Major paradigm shift – well done on the mindset shift.
“if we are ever going to escape from the burdens of our terrible past, we must throw off the polarising effects of racial prejudice.”
I agree fully.
Your interpretation of my “assumption” is inaccurate.
My view is that our past is entrenched structurally and systemically.
Normalising our society is going to take effort all round and there are no doubt going to be some discomfort.
It would be much better if the “some among us” who are daunted, enabled rather than obstructed the process.
Maggs, I am sincerely grateful we are making progress here.
It is just a pity that you remain doggedly committed to pretext that many blacks were disadvantaged by Bantu ED, and are therefore less qualified to take up so-called “skilled” posts at senior levels today.
You forget that many of these jobs demand little more that determination and apppropriate intuition. The actual “skills” one picks up along the way.
Mikhail Dworkin Fassbinder says:
February 8, 2010 at 6:45 am
“It is just a pity that you remain doggedly committed to pretext that many blacks were disadvantaged by Bantu ED, and are therefore less qualified to take up so-called “skilled” posts at senior levels today.”
Stop smoking that stuff – it’s frying your brain!
http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=92683
As much as I agree with this Economist, I wish she was vocal during her time in the Presidency working with Netshitenze.
Yadda yadda yadda!
Those shocking analytical skills Leigh complains of are not confined to one person.
If Bantu Education was so terrible, the intellectual product of the nastiest people on earth, then why is the dialectic even more disgraceful?
Looks like some fundamental assumptions – and is this not political correctness’ just reward – are somewhat flawed.
Brett, why is it that you refuse to recognise it when I agree with you? (In that respect, you resemble our mutual friend Maggs.)
I freely acknowledge that, although apartheid itself was quite a bad thing, Bantu Education was actually quite GOOD!
How else could it have produced a whole generation of people who are superbly qualified to do every job needed in a modern economy, if only racist whites will get out of the way?
That is another thing that peeves me, Dworky!
IMHO, Apartheid was completely unChristian. To consign people who are trying to lead godly lives to a lower station and making their existence a misery just because of the colour of their skin is morally indefensible, and the perpetrators need a lot of prayer from us. But, you see, a lot of you reject that frame of reference!
The logical inconsistencies in your argument or criticism of Apartheid or chirps about ‘Bantu-education’ start there!
Good/Bad is a moral judgement that is founded in a religious world view. Some of us can make it, many of you should not.
You say “apartheid itself was quite a bad thing”.
Really?
Maggs believes there nothing good about it. And, if “apartheid itself was quite a bad thing” the perpetrators were really not very nice people. And, those who believed in it were bad as well. Those who actively advocated it? Sies!
So, some incredible moral value judgments are being made.
Brett, as always, I am full of respect for you.
Maggs too, I adore. What a pity that, like Jimmy Manyi, he refuses to accept that the fortunate fact that we have no real skills shortage in South Africa today is attributable to the so-called “Bush” colleges, set up by the apartheid govt. Say what you like about these much maligned instiutions, they offered excellent training!
Dworky, I am overwhelmed by you, too.
Maggs’ biggest problem is that he refuses to acknowledge that the ANC has an incredible capacity to take ‘less than perfect’ and turn it into ‘infinitely worse’!
Sometimes one has to make the best of ‘good enough’.
http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=1112448
The struggle for Shiraz, Gucci, Prawns, Moet has taken over and Cosatu is right. We need to stop this culture of bling which leaves us with nothing but huge debts.
Most of these commodities are not even locally produced and add very little to our economy.
@ Dworky and Brett
I’ll be rude and interrupt even though you are talking about me, no to me.
“”the ANC has an incredible capacity to take ‘less than perfect’ and turn it into ‘infinitely worse’!” captures the essence of how I read your interpretation of our constitutional democracy.
What you consider “less than perfect”, I regard as horrific.
What you consider “infinitely worse”, I regard as indescribably better than my experience in your “less than better” world.
While you struggle to retain the “less than perfect” world as you know it, there are “many among us” who are determined in the opposite direction
Gwebecimele says:
February 10, 2010 at 8:27 am
“Most of these commodities are not even locally produced and add very little to our economy.”
To add insult to injury :
“In a strongly worded statement, Cosatu expressed its anger about the ANC MP’s involvement in negotiating a contract with a Chinese sweat factory.
The union called on the ANC to demand accountability from Huang regarding his role in selling job opportunities – which could have gone to unemployed South Africans – to a company that is mercilessly exploiting Chinese workers.”
http://www.sevafrica.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=364
And
http://groups.google.com/group/cosatu-press/browse_thread/thread/f511020ab217c6e6?pli=1
I reckon that, based on those, reports the ANC MP has a total and utter disregard for the people of our country.
It’s most unfortunate the our government and the ANC has not condemned this and taken swift action.
@ Maggs
This MP is an ex- IFP and that should tell you enough about his understanding of progressive policies. He comes across as an opportunist of a calibre of Peter Marais, Boesak who are walking around with a political eraser in their pockets. I hope someone will initiate a recall of this Mampara.
Chinese citizens are also classified as previously disadvantaged individuals for the purposes of BBEEE and BEE legislation. If I’m white, but was raised in difficult circumstances, would I be able to convince a potential employer that I am previously disadvantaged? Or what if I was advocating anti apartheid views during that period and was marginalised by government as a result thereof like our hero Luke Puke Watson, then can I have a piece of the pie, because I’m starving here man. By the way I don’t think that’s the only reason why old Cheeky’s son didn’t have any friends.
Gwebecimele says:
February 10, 2010 at 9:15 am
“This MP is an ex- IFP and that should tell you enough about his understanding of progressive policies.”
To rub salt in the wound, it’s reported that he serves on the Economic Affairs Portfolio Committee.
Friend says:
February 10, 2010 at 9:26 am
“what if I was advocating anti apartheid views during that period”
If you were advocating it because you truly understood it’s impact then you would not be raising the issues that you have raised in the way that you raised it.
You would have understood the profound consequences that will remain with our people for a long time to come.
And you would have understand why the effort in normalising our society is so absolutely necessary.
Maggs is right.
While it is true that poor people care deeply about service delivery, they are inspired more by the success stories of affirmative action/BEE.
I have noted that, even if hungry and cold, poor people love basking in the reflected glory of one of their own colour — Tokyo, Patrice or Sipho — enjoying big houses, good Scotch, and late-model German cars. The very thought keeps our people warm right through the cold Highveld winters!
Kwame Nkrumah had it right: “Seek yea first the political kingdom, and all else shall be added unto you.”
Mikhail Dworkin Fassbinder says:
February 10, 2010 at 11:09 am
“While it is true that poor people care deeply about service delivery”
So it seems that your view is that the backlog in service delivery and the disparity facing poor people is a consequence of our constitutional democracy and as a result of the ineffectiveness of the AA/BEE processes.
Smart conclusion and inspiring too.
Mark says:
February 5, 2010 at 11:41 am
I still dont understand why Apartheid is being blamed for the lack of skills. Can somebody please explain this to me? I am not a supporter of Apartheid, I just dont think it is the reason for the lack of skills.
Friend here is a friend.
Mark, with great respect, apartheid is to blame for many things — but not for lack of skills.
You are missing the point: there IS no skills shortage.
People who whinge about there being a skills shortage (because Bantu Ed was so bad), are RACISTS who use this as an excuse to hire whites with so-called “qualifications”, and years of “experience.”
Sies. Maggs is another one who wants to blame the Constitution for all our country’s ills.
Can you not see it is the ANC that is to blame, not the Constitution, Maggs?
So, Maggs, you experienced all the evils of Bantu education AND the glory of OBE.
What happened? Failed Matric 20 times?
Brett Nortje says:
February 10, 2010 at 12:32 pm
“Can you not see it is the ANC that is to blame, not the Constitution, Maggs?”
Since Sne is gone awol, I will tata ma chance.
So you reckon that the massive backlog in the provision of services is as a result of the ANC.
So it must have developed since the coming of our democracy in 1994.
What in your view was it like before then?
Brett Nortje says:
February 10, 2010 at 12:34 pm
I am completely lost as to what you said there.
Please go through that in small steps, remember I am very slow.
Maggs, I was 14 when apartheid ended and I know for a fact that my parents were not whatever you justify your speedy conclusions upon, I have shared my anti apartheid views with whomever I could and, just like today, I don’t need to lose my cool about it and my father never got his noddy badge either, we never gave a fuck about the government and we never will.
P.S. How would you like it if I assumed your car has after market wheels and furr on the dash just because your last name is Naidu?
@ Friend
we never gave a fuck about the government and we never will.
Are you a resident of Orania or have enough passports to run around?
Yes, you’re right, Maggs.
One cannot simply say ‘1994 is the cut-off point where the ANC starts shouldering the blame’. The ANC needs to take credit for the housing backlog going back to the time they stopped the Urban Foundation building houses. They need to shoulder some of the blame for the structural unemployment that really took root in the 1980’s sanctions and disinvestment campaigns.
Remember the slogans ‘liberation before education’ and ‘making South Africa ungovernable’?
I see your point.
No, Gwebe, I’m a standard citizen like you and we should not be the ones struggling at the end of the day, it should be the government having a hard time so we don’t have to stress about anything but our jobs and our families, but the governing party in this country has never sought to advince the interests of it’s citezens. I am not sure what it wants to advance and what the economy will do, but what I can tell you is that if you focus on race it seems that you are doing exactly what the system is trying to condition you to do, the government doesn’t have to waste their resources like riot police or print out election campaigne pamphlets, they could just use the hate that it propagates against each others to convince people to vote ANC and to sort each other out at wherever the dispute.
This is my way of not dissosiating myself with the government of then and of now, my own little rebellion is to keep the peace
Exactly. Divide and conquer. Keep people of different races at each others’ throats and their eyes cannot be on the looting going on.
Friend says:
February 10, 2010 at 13:52 pm
“P.S. How would you like it if I assumed your car has after market wheels and furr on the dash just because your last name is Naidu?”
I would like it a lot and you would be correct, it’s a Naidu tradition.
Maggs Naidu says:
February 10, 2010 at 17:38 pm
And dark blue in colour?
Chris says:
February 10, 2010 at 17:48 pm
“And dark blue in colour?”
That’s the tradition.
@ Brett
I disagreed with much of the nonsense you wrote about guns. (And, unlike Dworky, I do not hold you political taxonomy in high regard.)
But your response to Maggs (on the responsibility the ANC must bear for pre-1994 “liberation now, education later” slogan), is insightful.
The tragedy is that an entire generation of children lost out on much of its schooling. For them, there never wias “education later.”
[That being said, would there have been "liberation" at all, had the ANC not mobilised school kids in its "Peoples War"? I am not sure.]
Michael Osborne says:
February 10, 2010 at 20:11 pm
Insightful, a curiously interesting description.
There are two issues here.
One is the service backlog is being project as an ANC created mess – that’s a lot of nonsense. At worse the ANC bears responsibility for not remedying as speedily as could have been done. But it’s utter nonsense that this was created by the ANC.
The other is the consequences of the liberation struggle. It’s an interesting debate which I hope will be taken up soon.
Thank you, Michael, for supporting all the facts I put out there in the Great Gun Debate.
http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=552&fArticleId=5345874