A shift in thinking is needed to counter South Africa's startling rise in poverty

REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko

South Africa urgently needs new policy ideas to reverse the alarming increase in poverty among its population. New figures reveal an increase of three million South Africans living in poverty over the last five years. More than half (55%) of the population lives on less than R1,138 (USD$107) a month, up from 53% in 2011.

In a country with 55 million people, 34 million are going without some of the basic necessities, like housing, transport, food, heating and proper clothing. The escalation in hardship and vulnerability reverses the steady progress made since the 1990s.

The poorest have been hit the hardest. One in four citizens survives on less than R531 a month and can’t afford to buy enough food to keep healthy. This proportion has risen from one in five in 2011.

The consequences are plain to see. They include more street begging, homelessness, loan sharks, social discontent, substance misuse and violent crime in many communities. Income is not the only measure of poverty. Progress on education, health and basic living conditions also seems to have stalled.

Progress setback

The decline in living standards has occurred despite the extension of social grants to two million more recipients in the past five years, bringing the total number of social grant beneficiaries to 17 million. That is nearly one in three people.

Over the previous decade and a half, extending social grants proved to be an effective way of alleviating hardship. Something has changed.

The global economic slowdown and depressed commodity prices have obviously contributed to the problem. These factors have raised unemployment to record high levels. Domestic political uncertainties, regulatory conflicts and weaknesses in public administration have also dented business confidence and undermined private sector investment.

New ideas are needed to combat poverty and inequality in South Africa. A good place to start is the concept of inclusive growth. This is partly about ensuring more people play an active part in economic, social and political processes. It gives people agency and dignity, and helps to hold institutions to account.

The limits of redistribution

Since the 1990s, the government’s approach to poverty has focused on fiscal redistribution. Tax rates increase the more people earn, and the revenue raised has been used to support poorer groups. Social assistance has taken the form of free housing, free education, health care, sanitation, electricity and social grants.

Spending on this “social wage” has more than doubled in real terms (taking inflation into account) over the past decade. It now amounts to 60% of total public spending. South Africa is reputed to have one of the most redistributive fiscal policies (tax and spending) in the world.

Yet, with a sluggish economy, high government debt and new demands for bailouts from state owned enterprises and universities, the ability to pay for this welfare system is severely strained. It will be extremely difficult to raise the value of social support or extend it to more people in the period ahead.

Since South Africa progressed from apartheid to democracy in 1994, there has been an understandable focus on distributional matters. These efforts have taken priority over action to promote broad-based growth, integrated development and overall prosperity.

Too little attention has gone into expanding production, employment creation (outside the public sector) and enlarging the resource base. Among households, too, there has been excessive emphasis on spending, rather than saving and investing in education, skills and household assets. As a result, the economy and society are poorly equipped to cope with shocks.

Inclusive growth

“Inclusive growth” is often touted as a way forward. It’s an umbrella concept to get people with different interests to work together and build a new consensus around a shared agenda for the country’s development. But what does it mean in practice?

A central element is creating new and different kinds of economic opportunities and linking them explicitly to social needs. Major investments in technology, infrastructure and other facilities should lower barriers to inclusion and give more people on low incomes a chance to work or develop skills to progress.

Growth can’t be left to market forces and private enterprise. And social development can’t be left to government alone. A more integrated “whole of society” approach is needed to bridge historical divides.

This means business, labour, civil society and different spheres of government all playing a role in combating poverty by going beyond their conventional responsibilities. Organisations should take positive steps to continually open up opportunities and reduce social inequalities. Firms should actively seek out new markets, new suppliers and new sources of labour.

Local development

Recent discussions have been limited to national stakeholders. Equivalent local initiatives have been few and far between. Yet a strong and prosperous society cannot be engineered from above.

South Africa needs to build competent institutions at local level too. Common platforms for collaboration are required to harness the energies and share the know-how of people in the cities, towns and villages where they live, work and invest.

A place-based approach means tailoring inclusionary economic policies to local realities and opportunities. Local investments in housing, transport, business property and skills will have a greater impact when they are carefully linked and coordinated.

Support informality

Current ambivalent attitudes towards informality are not helping anyone. The informal economy could be a nursery for people to learn valuable skills, a stepping stone to formal jobs, and a seedbed for larger, more competitive businesses.

Many unemployed and destitute adults can’t get the grants available to pensioners, children and the disabled. Yet various forms of bureaucratic red tape obstruct their initiatives to start informal enterprises and “create their own jobs”.

Informal settlements are a route for people to escape rural poverty and gain access to urban job markets. Yet they are neglected, hazardous places threatened by government evictions. Affordable urban housing could instead be a driver of inclusive growth and spatial transformation.

In an economic slump, with tight public finances, the government needs new and different ways of responding to local realities. It should orchestrate efforts throughout society which actively support people’s struggles to get ahead, not just enable them get by.

Ivan Turok, Executive Director, HSRC, Human Sciences Research Council

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

Leaked emails: Ramaphosa’s hypocrisy on spying by the South African state

South African Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa claims the country’s security agencies hacked his emails.
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In the run up to the election of the next president of South Africa’s governing ANC in December, unknown entities are clearly working hard to discredit candidates who have spoken out against state capture.

The latest dirty tricks have targeted Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, who recently condemned the capture of the South African state, allegedly by business interests linked to President Jacob Zuma. Someone has leaked Ramaphosa’s emails from his private Gmail accounts, suggesting that he was having multiple affairs, despite being married.

Ramaphosa has claimed that the fingerprints of the state intelligence services are all over the leaks. He has also located the smear attempt within

…a broader campaign that has targeted several political leaders‚ trade unionists‚ journalists and civil society activists.

How much credibility do his claims have? Those responsible could be private actors with no links to the spy agencies. But, no one should be surprised if his allegations of state spying turn out to be correct.

After all, in 2005, state spy agencies were abused in the bruising succession battle between then President Thabo Mbeki and his rival for the ANC presidency, Jacob Zuma. That behaviour seems to have been sustained.

There are systemic weaknesses in how the state intelligence services are regulated that predispose them to abuse. As a senior member of government, Ramaphosa must take political responsibility for keeping silent about these problems until now.

Eavesdropping in South Africa

It’s quite possible that Ramaphosa’s Gmail accounts were hacked. An intrusive piece of hacking software like Finfisher could do the trick. Finfisher is a weapons grade intrusion tool sold exclusively to governments. It is particularly useful for monitoring security conscious and mobile targets who make extensive use of encryption.

The tool allows its operator to take control of a target’s computer as soon as it is connected to the internet. Once the operator does so, it can turn on web cameras and microphones for surveillance purposes, and exfiltrate -withdraw- data from the target’s computer, such as emails.

By 2014, South Africa was the third largest named user of Finfisher, after Slovakia and Estonia.

In 2015, the University of Toronto’s Citizenlab detected a Finfisher command-and-control server in South Africa. The discovery strongly suggested that the South African government continued to be a Finfisher user.

Leaked emails from Finfisher’s competitor, the Italian-based Hacking Team, also provided evidence that South African government departments were in the market for hacking tools. And South Africa has a reputation in international intelligence circles for targeting individuals (like journalists, activists and academics) through hacking, rather than engaging in mass surveillance of the kind practised by the US and the UK. Tools like Finfisher come in handy.

Safeguards against abuse

In spite of their invasiveness, hacking tools are under regulated in South Africa.

There are two communication interception centres in the State Security Agency that the general public knows about. The first is the Office for Interception Centres, which handles targeted interceptions approved by a special judge. It is inwardly focused, and provides services to national crime fighting agencies.

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The second is the National Communications Centres, which monitors the electronic communication. This centre is externally focused. It collects foreign signals intelligence.

While the Office for Interception Centres is established in terms of the Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication Related Information Act (Rica), the National Communications Centres has no explicit founding legislation, and no known rules that govern its activities. This is why the current court challenge is significant.

In 2008, the European Court of Human Rights identified six safeguards for strategic intelligence gathering, to limit the potential for abuses.

It says the law needs to:

• Spell out the nature of the offences which may give rise to an interception order.
• Provide a definition of the categories of people liable to have their telephones tapped.
• Limit on the duration of tapping.
• Set out the procedure to be followed for examining, using and storing the data obtained
• List precautions to be taken when communicating the data to other parties.
• Spell out the circumstances in which recordings may or must be erased or the tapes destroyed.

South Africa’s laws fail these tests dismally.

There are also no known rules governing the State Security Agency’s use of selectors - the search terms used to process raw communications data - for analysing mass communication. This could lead to abuse.

Spying on political dissent

The problem of under regulation does not end with the National Communications Centre. As the country’s civilian intelligence agency, the State Security Agency is meant to develop high level strategic intelligence to inform the Cabinet in deciding on the nation’s most urgent national intelligence priorities.

But, a State Security Agency organogram leaked to Al Jazeera points to the existence of an operational entity in the domestic intelligence section called the Special Operations Unit. Little is known about its exact mandate.

The Sunday newspaper, City Press has linked this unit to a number of dirty tricks. These include smearing top civil servants, and forming a rival trade union to the Association for Mineworkers and Construction Union in the platinum belt, as well as spying.

And, a recent investigation by Privacy International exposed a revolving door between the intelligence agencies, the mining industry, and private security companies in the communications surveillance sector. In other words, not only are the state spy agencies underregulated; private sector ones are too.

So the available evidence points to the State Security Agency’s political and economic intelligence focus being used to legitimise government spying on perceived political critics, and protect the exploitative business practices of mining companies.

Ramaphosa double standards

In 2013, Parliament narrowed the definition of what constitutes a national security threat to exclude legitimate political activities. Be that as it may, it has not done enough to address the weaknesses that created space for the 2005 spying abuses to occur.

Complaints from journalists and activists about illegitimate spying by the state have been piling up for several years. As the Deputy President, Ramaphosa would have been aware of these complaints. Yet, as a shareholder and non-executive director of Lonmin, Ramaphosa would have benefited from the spy agencies’ interference in labour struggles in the platinum belt.

He has not spoken out about the under regulation of the spy agencies until now. Ramaphosa must take political responsibility for the utter mess that grips the state spy agencies.

Undoubtedly, spying on political elites threatens democracy, but it is self-serving of Ramaphosa to complain only when he himself becomes the target. Political leaders who are vying for the highest office in the land really need to be more principled.

The author is completing a book manuscript entitled ‘Stopping the spies: constructing and resisting the surveillance state in South Africa’ (forthcoming with Wits University Press in 2018).

Jane Duncan, Professor in the Department of Journalism, Film and Television, University of Johannesburg

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

Shackdwellers demand right to return to land

Illegal occupation will not be tolerated, says Nelson Mandela Bay municipality

By Joseph Chirume
7 September 2017

Ikhamvelihle protesters demanded the right to return to the land from which they were evicted. Photo: Joseph Chirume

One person was arrested on Wednesday morning in Port Elizabeth after a small group of backyarders barricaded roads. They were demanding permission to build shacks on an open space from which they had been evicted..

About 20 residents of Ikhamvelihle township used rocks and burning tyres to block traffic along the Addo and Marko roads.They accused Nqaba Bhanga, human settlements head in the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality, of not responding to their letters. But Bhanga said he had received no letters.
Protest leader Thulani Vena said, “We wrote three letters recently to Nqaba Bhanga in which we were asking for permission to rebuild our shacks in an open space adjacent to Addo Road. We were evicted from the site a few months ago.”

“I have been on the housing waiting list for many years. It seems people who are being given houses are those who are related to the officials. I am renting a backyard shack using my children’s social grant money.”

Vena lives with his wife and four children. He said he had given up hope of ever getting a job after spending many years looking for one.

“I would be happy to own a house so that my children will have a place they call home,” he said.
Another protester, Skumbule Mangelitshana, said, “We will only stop protesting after Bhanga responds to our letters. The municipality does not care about providing us with houses. They always call police when residents are holding peaceful protests.”

“Police have arrested one of our members. We are not criminals. Our demand is to build shacks on that vacant piece of land. The municipality can then provide for other services when we are already living on the site.”

Bhanga said the residents were “lying” about sending him letters. “I never received any letter, not even an email from them.”

“I had a meeting with the residents of Ikhamvelihle soon after the recent evictions. However, illegal occupation of that piece of land will not be tolerated. We will remove whoever occupies municipal land without getting permission from us.”

Police spokesperson Colonel Priscilla Naidu said a 35-year-old had been arrested and would appear in the Motherwell court.

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Published originally on GroundUp .

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Premier Zille’s childhood toilets not comparable to informal settlements

She has once more shown a lack of understanding of the lives of black people

By Axolile Notywala
8 September 2017

Mshengu toilets in Site C, Khayelitsha. Archive photo: Masixole Feni

Western Cape Premier Helen Zille defended on Twitter this past week what she said in 2014 to Khayelitsha residents on cleaning informal settlement toilets.

Zille’s defence came after eNCA’s Checkpoint exposed the daily indignities imposed on black people living in South Africa’s informal settlements. The episode was titled Sanitary Hell, and it focused on the provision of portable toilets in Johannesburg’s informal settlements.

In the episode City of Johannesburg Mayco Member Nico de Jager said that it’s the responsibility of the people using the toilets to clean them. Journalist Nkepile Mabuse asked him whether he cleans the toilet he uses in the government building, to which he replied no. Then Mabuse asked why he expects the people of Zamimpilo informal settlement in Kliptown to clean public toilets. De Jager couldn’t answer him.

I retweeted this segment of the interview saying that in 2014 Zille said the same thing about Khayelitsha informal settlement residents. Zille then replied to my tweet: “I was taught to leave a toilet (public or private) in the condition I would like to find it. Many others I know do the same thing”. She went on to say, “I have utilised almost every kind of toilet from long drop to waterless. We had bucket toilets at primary school. Same etiquette applies”.

You would think that having served as both Mayor of Cape Town and Premier of the Western Cape Zille would have greater awareness of the living conditions in informal settlements.

A few things about these toilets that Zille and De Jager expect informal settlement residents to clean. (1) They are meant to be temporary. (2) They are used over long periods of time, up to ten years in many cases. (3) These are chemical and container toilets that can be shared by more than 15 families in some communities.

Many people living in South Africa’s informal settlements still lack access to adequate sanitation services, such as functioning flush toilets. In Cape Town, we know of the infamous porta-potties, also known as portable flush toilets that are provided to informal settlement residents. This is essentially an undignified and unhygienic form of a bucket toilet. And there’s also the free-standing Mshengu toilets.

In informal settlements, using a toilet can be one of the most dangerous activities one has to perform daily. Residents often have to walk away from their homes to access them. It is particularly dangerous at night because of lack of proper lighting. Many are robbed, raped and murdered on their way to and from these toilets.

Zille’s attitude to how these toilets must be cleaned is an example of her and her followers’ white privilege. I don’t know of one white person who uses and shares a bucket toilet with hundreds of others. It is black people that experience this kind of structural violence on a daily basis because of the many failures of our government.

Exploitation of desperate black workers is also exposed in the Checkpoint episode. Sanitation contractors such as Supreme Sanitation and Sanitech are given massive tenders to provide and service chemical toilets in informal settlements. Some of the workers employed by these contractors to clean the toilets are paid a disgraceful amount of about R600 (sometimes less) per month and are not provided with protective equipment. Many in government continue to defend these companies and pay them the millions of rands of our public funds.

In the documentary an elderly man, Ebrahem Mofokeng, breaks down because of the dire conditions he and many others have lived in for decades. It is heartbreaking. The indignities and exploitation exposed in Johannesburg is no different to other municipalities. Communities and organisations such as the Social Justice Coalition (SJC) have campaigned and highlighted these issues for many years but little has changed. This is why in 2016 the SJC filed court papers in the Equality Court against the City of Cape Town for its failure to provide dignified sanitation services to poor, black and marginalised residents of informal settlements. The hearing for this case has been set for 16 and 17 October 2017.

Premier Zille’s time and focus should rather be spent on actually fixing these problems and not insulting people. Comparing her experience of having used a bucket toilet in school with that of informal settlement residents is insulting. I am not disputing that she had a hard childhood but it is incomparable to what people living in informal settlements endure; she shows a lack of understanding of how millions of black people in South Africa live.

Notywala is the General Secretary of the Social Justice Coalition.

Views expressed are not necessarily GroundUp’s.

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Published originally on GroundUp .

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How PR giant Bell Pottinger made itself look bad

So … the thing is.
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The reputation of global PR company Bell Pottinger has suffered a massive blow. The boss has resigned, clients have walked, the firm has been expelled from the Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA) – and it has now put itself up for sale. All because of its work on a controversial contract in South Africa.

Bell Pottinger, which has staff, partners and offices in many parts of the world, is headquartered in London. So when the South African political party the Democratic Alliance wanted to complain about the firm’s activities, the London-based PRCA was its chosen route.

The whole issue of ethics and regulation in public relations is a thorny one. In virtually every country, anyone can call themselves a PR practitioner. I am an accredited practitioner with all sorts of qualifications, but there is nothing in law to stop my neighbour, a plumber, from hanging out a sign saying he is a PR officer, too.

But thanks to a drive from industry professionals there have been efforts to promote ethics and ensure some sort of regulation, which practitioners and companies can choose to sign up to.

In the UK, there is the PRCA (mostly for organisations) and the CIPR (mostly for individual practitioners). Each has codes of conduct and disciplinary processes. Each can censure and expel. Ethical practitioners hope that clients will equate membership with high standards.

The PRCA’s expulsion of Bell Pottinger is the most serious sanction it can take, and follows an investigation, a provisional ruling and an appeal. But now Bell Pottinger is out, and it cannot apply to rejoin for at least five years.

According to PRCA Director General Francis Ingham:

Bell Pottinger has brought the PR and communications agency into disrepute … The PRCA has never before passed down such a damning indictment of an agency’s behaviour.

Bell Pottinger was founded in part by Sir Tim (now Lord) Bell in 1987. Advising former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher on her presentational style, he became one of the biggest names in PR. The firm did not shy away from controversial clients, who included former South African president FW de Klerk, Asma al-Assad, the wife of Syrian president Bashir al-Assad, and the South African athlete Oscar Pistorius, after he was accused of murder.

Lord Bell himself resigned from the company last year. And in an interview with the BBC’s Newsnight (which was twice interrupted by his mobile phone ringing) he said this latest episode was “almost certainly” the end.

Experts in keeping up appearances, the firm no doubt regrets the work it carried out for the wealthy Gupta family, which has close links to South Africa’s president Jacob Zuma.

The British PR firm got into trouble with a social media “economic emancipation campaign” in which the phrase “white monopoly capital” was said to have been deliberately, or irresponsibly, used, stirring up racial tension.

South Africa’s opposition Democratic Alliance accused Bell Pottinger of a “hateful and divisive campaign to divide South Africa along the lines of race”.

The scandal led to resignations – and the loss of clients. Britain’s biggest bank, HSBC, has said it would no longer use Bell Pottinger. A Swiss luxury company headed by a South African businessman, a South African investment group, and Acacia, which owns gold mines in Tanzania, are also reportedly off the books.

The damage to the company’s reputation is immense. While Bell Pottinger did take on work for clients which some of us find offensive or “to be avoided”, there is a difference between a client with a bad reputation deserving some help, and creating a bad reputation through the very act of communication.

Is all publicity still good publicity?

Will nations and companies still want to hire the company in the future? Some will probably take the attitude that recent events do not affect the organisation’s ability to carry out its work.

But will journalists and other PR audiences be ready to accept the firm’s messages? Probably not. The first response of any journalist contacted by a Bell Pottinger spokesperson will surely be to think of this damning incident. It will be tough for any lobbying campaign to carry conviction with the Bell Pottinger name attached.

Of course, being expelled from a professional association does not take away the ability to practice. The Democratic Alliance itself has pointed out that Bell Pottinger can still work in South Africa.

But PR depends on the ability to win client accounts – by convincing them that you will protect and enhance their reputation. It is difficult to see how an organisation which has effectively trashed its own reputation can protect someone else’s.

Paula Keaveney, Senior Lecturer in Public Relations and Politics, Edge Hill University

This article was originally published on The Conversation.