Cyril Ramaphosa's leaked emails: echoes of apartheid-era dirty tricks

South African Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa.
GCIS

A routine smear. This is the view of the overwhelming majority of commentators and analysts about last weekend’s “revelations” in the Sunday Independent that Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa was a serial womaniser.

The commentariat can expect more such smears. They will come against more than one candidate running for the presidency of the governing ANC - and subsequently of the country. It’s not hard to predict that this slapstick routine will continue all the way to voting at the ANC’s national conference in December.

This was at least the second anti-Ramaphosa smear, following an earlier damp squib that alleged that he abused his ex-wife, a claim she firmly refuted.

Ramaphosa has alleged that rogue elements in the country’s intelligence services hacked into his private emails and doctored them before handing them to the newspaper to smear him. This, he said, was intended to scupper his campaign to become president of the governing ANC and the country. He predicted that it would get worse ahead of the governing party’s elective conference.

Ramaphosa is in a virtual two-horse race with former head of the African Union, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, for the presidency of the ANC. Her former husband President Jacob Zuma has endorsed her as his preferred successor.

ANC Secretary General Gwede Mantashe has since urged factions within the governing party to desist from using state resources to discredit those competing for the presidency.

Then and now

Several dimensions of this are worth unpacking.

Police states, unlike democracies, by definition abuse their secret services to spy on peaceful, lawful opponents. But to find a case where the secret services are also abused to spy on factions and rivals within the governing party, one has to go back all the way to the 1960s.

General Hendrik van den Bergh, who set up the Bureau for State Security (BOSS), to spy on the apartheid regime’s leftist and liberal opponents, also founded the Republikeinse Intelligensie Diens to spy on the then governing National Party’s right-wing faction. These verkramptes (conservatives) broke away in 1969 to form the Herstigte Nasionale Party.

It’s painful to make comparisons between the apartheid police state and post-apartheid South Africa’s Westminster-style democracy. But secret service abuse of phone tapping and letter opening leaves analysts no choice.

While it’s now over a decade since a horrified former Intelligence minister Ronnie Kasrils discovered that some of his subordinates and phone tappers in the National Intelligence Service (NIS) strayed beyond their brief. They took opposite sides in the acrimonious split between President Thabo Mbeki and his fired deputy Jacob Zuma.

What we now seem to have again are rival cliques within the State Security Agency. Each clique sucks up to a rival politician. One clique made available a selection of Ramaphosa’s emails for others to doctor and leak to the Sunday Independent. Another, different clique, was presumably involved in the earlier Gupta email cache. The “#Guptaleaks” exposed the extent of the alleged corrupt relationship between the powerful Gupta family and state officials, parastatals, as well as its influence on Zuma’s government.

A second dimension of the latest smear against Ramaphosa is equally fascinating. The smear organisers, no doubt after some debate between themselves, made the deliberate choice that their smear should be leaked to the Sunday Independent – instead of to The New Age and ANN7. The later was established by Zuma’s friends, the Guptas. With their television station, The New Age are at the heart of state capture allegations and rabidly pro-Zuma and his faction.

This must reflect the spooks’ considered judgement that The New Age and ANN7 are so completely tainted as Gupta business outlets as to be discredited. So, their smear’s only chances of credibility lay with placing their bait in some alternative media go-between. It does help that Steven Motale, the editor of the Sunday Independent, who wrote the story on the leaked emails, is also perceived to be in the pro-Zuma camp, having written an impassioned open letter in 2015 expressing his regret that he was part of a “sinister” campaign against the president.

Motale also praised ordinary members of the ANC members who “consistently supported Zuma despite the sustained barrage of propaganda against him”. He followed it with another this year in which he condemns former Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan as being an impediment to Zuma’s idea of radical economic transformation.

Presumably this leaking and smearing will continue. There will always be one media outlet desperate enough for an exclusive scoop from the secret services. That, also, has not changed since the apartheid decades. Remember The Star newspaper alleging that thorn in the apartheid government’s side, Joe Slovo, who was general secretary of the South African Communist Party during the liberation struggle, killed his activist wife Ruth First? That was of course a total fabrication by the apartheid regime’s agents.

Here in 2017 though, democracy relies on a politically savvy public of informed voters who will respond to smears not with credulity, but amusement, cartoons, and sarcasm.

Campaigns, slates and splits

The remaining months of the formal ANC election campaign between now and the party’s national elective conference in December recall to mind Helen Zille’s comment when she suddenly sprung her surprise resignation as national leader of the main opposition Democratic Alliance (DA). She commented that any internal DA campaigning longer than a few brief weeks would harm her party.

By contrast, ANC internal campaigning resembles primary years in the United States, stretching over pretty much at least 12 months. The ANC needs to develop mechanisms to manage this without splits - such as those that led to the formation of the United Democratic Movement, the Congress of the People, and Economic Freedom Fighters - in its past.

“Slates” have plagued ANC politics during its 2007 and 2012 conferences. With the slate system, delegates to the national conferences are lobbied to vote for a prescribed list (or slate) of candidates linked to a specific presidential candidate. Such a list then automatically becomes the party’s highest decision making body, its national executive committee.

One solution is for the ANC to change its voting procedures for its national and provincial executive committees. This will ensure that the maximum number of candidates any delegate may vote for should be significantly less than the number of seats contested. This would ensure that while the winning slate still wins, the losing slate gets some representation. So it is neither purged nor splits off to form yet another breakaway party.

Keith Gottschalk, Political Scientist, University of the Western Cape

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

Dead dogs, dirty nappies, old food: rubbish piles up in Marikana - PHOTOS

City says land is private and it therefore cannot provide a refuse service

Text by Denise Patterson. Photos by Ashraf Hendricks.
6 September 2017

A youth walks passed rubbish in Sheffield road in Philippi East.

Trash has been piling up for years in Marikana informal settlement in Philippi, but the City of Cape Town says rubbish collection services cannot be provided.

When GroundUp visited the settlement on Tuesday, children were playing near the rubbish strewn on the paths between the shacks. In some places rubbish was piled up in informal dump sites, with disposable nappies, used sanitary towels, old food, dead chickens, shoes, clothes, and even a dead dog.

A stray dog walks past rubbish in Sheffield Road. Although some of the trash is easily accessible, rubbish services have not been provided.

Resident Nokuphiwa Kuma, said she and others had sent several letters and made many phone calls to the City of Cape Town about the rubbish but nothing had been done. “I am tired of calling for help but not getting it,” Kuma said. She said she would no longer try to contact the City “because they clearly don’t care about the people and more importantly the children here.”
“We just have to save ourselves”, said Kuma.

A dog finds a piece of meat in the trash and runs off, followed by his comrade.

Mayoral Committee Member for Informal Settlements, Water and Waste Services and Energy, Xanthea Limberg, confirmed that rubbish collection services were not being provided.

“The City has historically been unable to provide refuse collection/cleansing services on this land as it is situated on privately owned land and was subject to a court case. Ad hoc removal of dumped material at the edges of the settlement, where accessible, has been taking place since the settlement formed. Due process in terms of legal proceedings must be followed before basic services can be provided,” she said.

“Should residents want to initiate another community-led clean-up of the area, the City will be able to provide bags and dispose of the refuse once they have collected it”.

In May the City cleared the informal dumps after residents and the Social Justice Coalition cleaned up the area.

Several areas inside the informal settlement are used as dumps. Children play nearby them.

In a landmark judgment last week, the Western Cape High Court ordered the City to negotiate with the owners of the land on which the informal settlement is located with a view to purchase.
Meanwhile residents in the community are afraid for their health from constantly being exposed to debris and foul smells from the dump sites.

Twenty-eight-year-old Ziyenda Daniso, said she worried about the health of her two-year-old, Onele, whom she has found eating the rubbish.

Resident Bonyiwe Khedomo said children played in the rubbish because there were no clean places for them to play. With rubbish right outside the shacks there was no way to keep children away from it except by keeping them indoors all the time, she said. “Sometimes before we notice, our children have already got into the rubbish eating it. We don’t know until our children fall sick and friends tell us what happened.”

Khedomo also said that if the City could supply bags or containers for residents’ rubbish, diseases and infections would not spread.

Residents say that trash in this particular area has been lying here for months.

Children play outside the toilets which is next to a dump. Residents claim children are getting ill because of the trash.

A dog wanders about a dump.

A man collects trash in Protea road, another rubbish dump inside Marikana.

Rubbish piles up next to a set of toilets.

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Published originally on GroundUp .

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We’re unfairly treated, says Bathabile Dlamini

Minister tells MPs to stop criticising SASSA officials

By Barbara Maregele
6 September 2017

Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini says she has been unfairly treated by MPs. Archive photo: Ashraf Hendricks

Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini has accused MPs of “unfair treatment” and of “criticising” officials over progress in setting up a new social grants payment system.
“We really feel that we are being unfairly treated because we have tried to clean our house and are trying our best,” she said.

Dlamini and representatives of the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) and the Department of Social Development were giving a progress report to Parliament’s social development portfolio committee on Wednesday. At the meeting SASSA announced that it could award the SA Post Office (SAPO) a contract to distribute grants from April 2018 by next Wednesday. But it was still not clear what SAPO’s exact role would be.

“I should mention that it was the ruling party that decided that the Post Office must be involved in the work of SASSA. We understand the nature of the work we are doing and need to ensure that they really have what is needed to pay grants. It has nothing to do with us not wanting to work with the Post Office,” she said.

Dlamini’s comments follow a late night meeting with Parliament’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) on Tuesday. Scopa MPs have previously raised concerns that SASSA’s plan to sign up other contractors as well as the Post Office could result in the current contractor, Cash Paymaster Services (CPS), continuing to provide services.

Before proceedings began on Wednesday, Dlamini told MPs that she was concerned with Scopa’s “compromising” questions to officials. “We want whoever thinks grant payment is important to work with us and not create confusion for officials. Yesterday in Scopa we were asked to disclose very confidential information which is unfair. We are being compromised in the name of doing justice,” she said.

Several MPs also questioned the oversight roles of the two parliamentary committees. Chairperson Rosemary Capa said that Scopa’s briefing should not take priority over that of her committee. She said she would ask for legal advice on the scope of the oversight role of both committees.
Since the Constitutional Court ruling in March which extended SASSA’s five-year contract with CPS until March 2018, SASSA has been giving quarterly reports to the Court on its progress towards taking over the payment of social grants.

The Court reinstated its supervisory role after SASSA failed to meet its own deadline to take over the payment of social grants. SASSA plans to “phase out” CPS and have a new contractor by 1 April 2018 and to take over the payments itself by 2021.

Dlamini suggested a meeting next Thursday to update MPs on SAPO’s role, before handing in the progress report to Court. “After the due diligence report is done, we should be given the opportunity to come back with SAPO and let them respond to the issues,” she said.

In her report, SASSA acting CEO Pearl Bhengu said the panel of experts appointed by the Court to assist the agency was charging R2,700 per hour instead of their offer of R1,500 per hour. Bhengu could not say how many hours the experts had worked so far despite concerns raised by MPs that their appointment could already be “over budget”.

Bhengu said the next progress reports to the Constitutional Court were due on 15 September and 15 December. SASSA expected to test the new payment system in January next year, Bhengu said. She assured MPs SASSA was “committed to sticking to the timelines” and 10.2 million new cards would be issued to beneficiaries within the next six months. Bhengu said SASSA was still in talks with the Reserve Bank to create special accounts for beneficiaries. She said no debit deductions would be allowed on the new accounts.

Green Cards

A number of MPs also questioned SASSA on how it would help grant recipients “get out” of their EasyPay Everywhere accounts or “green” cards.

EasyPay is the sister company of CPS, which distributes the 17.3 million social grants. Both companies are owned by Net1. EasyPay issues green cards and funeral policies with another Net1 company, SmartLife, to social grant recipients who apply for loans from Moneyline, also a Net1 company.

“We get complaints by people in townships all the time that are happy to take the loans, but then complain after they have all these deductions,” ANC MP Beverley Abrahams said.

In response, Dlamini said she had written to Grindrod Bank, where the EasyPay accounts are held, and to Net1 to “ask them to stop issuing the green cards to beneficiaries”. “There was never an agreement with them about these cards or the machines they introduced where people have to withdraw their money,” she said.

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Published originally on GroundUp .

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Matatiele: “It’s time government shows us they do care”

Premier given two weeks to fix roads

By Nombulelo Damba-Hendrik
7 September 2017

Matatiele residents have given the provincial Premier two weeks to respond to their demands for tarred roads. Photo: Manqulo Nyakombi

Community leaders in Matatiele have suspended protests for two weeks to give Eastern Cape Premier Phumulo Masualle time to come up with answers to their demands. But protesters say they have little faith that the Premier will do so.

Residents have been protesting since last month, demanding that dirt roads in the area be tarred. They say ambulances and police vans are struggling to get to their villages because of bad roads.

During the protests all dirt roads between Matatiele and Maluti, including the one between the town and the Lesotho border, were closed with burning tyres and big rocks. Several cars were stoned and 12 people were arrested for public violence. Schools were disrupted and police advised business owners to close their shops last week Wednesday.

Protests were suspended last Thursday after community members had a meeting with Masualle, Alfred Nzo district municipal officials, Matatiele local municipality officials and traditional leaders.
This week community chairperson Nhlahla Ntsoti said that the situation in Matatiele was still tense. “This is not over, but we want to give the Premier a chance to come up with a solution and if he fails we will go back on our dirt roads to protest,” he said.

He said residents were still gathering and were ready to start a protest anytime. “Today we stopped a group of protesters who were fed up with empty promises. They said they want to wait for Masualle on the road,” he said. “It is time government shows us that they do care.”

Resident Thapelo Mokoena said community members did not trust Masualle to solve the problem.
“We are tired of being fed empty promises. Last year we were told that the roads would be fixed, but that never happened. Again early this year we protested, but there was no solution. This time we are not going to back down,” he said.

Eastern Cape Department of Public Works spokesperson Phumzile Zuzile said the MEC of Public Works, Thandiswa Marawu, had written to the Minister of Public Works Nkosinathi Nhleko asking for the dirt road between Matatiele and the Lesotho border to be rebuilt by Sanral. They were waiting for the minister’s response to matter.

He said the department would continue to maintain the dirt roads in Matatiele.

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Published originally on GroundUp .

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Obsession with growth won't help South Africa's economic recovery

Unemployed South African workers wait for scarce jobs as the economy struggles to create employment.
EPA/NIC BOTHMA

Faced with a growing economic crisis, South Africa’s new Finance Minister, Malusi Gigaba, has come up with a 14 point plan to turn the country’s economic fortunes around. Sibonelo Radebe asked Mohammad Amir Anwar to assess the plan.

How do you rate the recovery plan?

It’s still early days but one thing is clear. The plan was put in place as a response to the credit rating downgrades experienced in the second quarter of 2017. It comes with a greater focus on monetary and fiscal frameworks, a slippery area which has served neo-liberal agendas in the post-1994 South Africa.

Instead of focusing on policies that allow redistribution of wealth and creating sociopolitical and economic opportunities for those who were left out of the system, successive ANC governments have been obsessed with neo-liberal dictates which have served to maintain apartheid inspired economic structures.

It’s unfortunate that Gigaba is still toeing the neo-liberal line despite all his political rhetoric, including a call for radical economic transformation.

This neo-liberal approach assumes that economic growth is the sole criterion to put the country back on the right track. This obsession with growth means that the focus is on short-term fiscal and monetary issues to gain the confidence of investors in the economy. Testament to this are the short deadlines of the plan and the accompanying narratives. These include references to reforms that “would support both businesses and consumer confidence, thereby laying the foundation for an economic recovery”.

It would seem that not much thinking has gone into changing the underlying structures of the economy for the long-term.

What are the most positive elements of the plan?

The minister has spoken about including different stakeholders in the recovery plan, which seems to be a good approach. South Africa’s history of segregation needs to be met with inclusive policies. Public consultations with key stakeholders and consensus must be key to any recovery plan.

The plan to tackle non-performing state-owned enterprises is very encouraging. But reckless recapitalisation by injecting public money into non-performing entities will only divert government resources, which could otherwise be used to help poor and marginalised people.

Government should realise that fixing troubled state-owned enterprises requires deep restructuring of the way they are operated and led. Boards that are part of the problem in terms of incompetency and corruption must be dissolved and reconstituted. Corrupt officials must be held accountable. Enhancing public-private partnership in some enterprises can also eliminate inefficiencies.

Another positive is that each of the 14 points and sub-points came with a deadline. This can focus the mind and ensure that work gets done. South Africa has seen many plans in the past come and go with no results.

But some of the dates are far too ambitious. For example, Gigaba speaks of finalising the Minerals and Petroleum Development Act amendment process by December 2017. This deadline is too tight and could result in low levels of participation. This will defeat the objective of getting stakeholder buy-in.

What are the most critical things that are missing from it?

Not enough attention has been given to job creation. The South African economy has for a very long time experienced jobless economic growth. This meant that the country’s jobless rate remained stubbornly high for many years. Recent figures of unemployment touching 27.7% are indeed worrying. Youth unemployment is said to be 52%. Any plan that addresses only economic growth without the creation of job opportunities will be found wanting.

The South African government’s priority should be to boost employment, by focusing on sectors that can easily generate jobs. I welcome the suggestion to boost the small, medium and micro-enterprises sector by giving them a share in public procurement. Small enterprises have been recognised for their potential to aid sustainable economic development and to create jobs.

The plan does not give details of overhauling the most important sectors of the economy: mining and agriculture. These sectors are key to generating growth and employment and can be used to drive economic transformation and empower communities that are at the margins of the economy.

For this to happen, the South African government needs to adopt radical approaches that include new and sustainable ways of doing business and redistribution of land.

There is a strong case for government to ensure that mining companies reinvest in workers and local economies. This can be done through investment in education of workers and forming business linkages with local companies that enable technology and knowledge transfer for a viable industrial transformation. Unemployed mine workers (and farm workers too) should be given new kinds of vocational training and education to help them find work elsewhere.

How do the ANC’s internal power struggles affect the plan?

The ANC’s leadership is in disarray. Intra-party fighting has led to opposing factions being formed, with each propagating its own economic vision. This increases the likelihood that a new crop of ANC leaders will change policy. Constant reshuffling and changes in key government positions can seriously affect policy plans and lead to uncertainty about the future.

A new leader will have to bring cohesion into an already fractured party, encourage all members to unite and work for a better South Africa and, most importantly, tackle corruption both in and outside party circles.

Mohammad Amir Anwar, Post-doctoral Research Fellow, University of Oxford

This article was originally published on The Conversation.