Both the African National Congress Youth League and Young Communist League have recently called on the government to nationalize the mines in an attempt to stabilize the economy of this country. There were several stories that were run in the newspapers and on television about this issue, in which the two organizations were championing the process. To add salt to the wound, I read a story on the Mail & Guardian, recently, in which the General Secretary of the ANCYL was interviewed and she confirmed in that interview that the issue has been presented to the alliance partners and is receiving the necessary attention. However, later a different version of the story came about, when Gwede Mantashe made it clear the issue has never been discussed.
In as far as my memory can serve me well; I have made a serious noise about issues that both ANCYL and YCL should entertain, they being of a broader societal (youth) interest. But when they actually came up with the idea that mines should be nationalized, I was amazed, and disappointed. Later, the same two organizations came up to call for the nationalization of individual wealth (i.e. Patrice Motsepe and Tokyo Sexwale), again on this, the question is, can this two leading two organization clarify people as to what is their mandate? I was of the view that they are elected purely to represent the needs of the youth of this country, however, on a day to day basis we continue to see them plunging our political leadership into crisis. I would have been impressed if they were calling for the individuals and the industries that they want to be nationalized to pump money towards the education of youth and any other form of youth developmental programmes.
The major challenge that our economy is currently facing is one that is known to everyone: corruption; which is perpetuated by the Senior Officials in government to enrich themselves. This is causing leading parties such as the ANC and SACP and its Human Resource Department, COSATU to come up with unfounded issues so as to cover up the alliance. I was very shocked to see an Auditor General’s report that confirmed that about 2000 government officials have throughout the past year, benefited from the Government Tender Process to the tune of R 610 Million.
Again, given this type of practice in the economy and the high unemployment rate that the government is faced up with, one will remain with several unanswered questions such as: if people who are the Government working system deceive the same government, what then the solution to this economic dismantlement is? We have people who are abusing their positions in the government to gain from the systems that the government has put in place to alleviate unemployment and poverty within the non working class, and yet such systems are being brutally abused by the same government officials.
Firstly, the President has called on the government officials to refrain from doing business with their respective Departments, and yet, the auditor general’s report is out and it has been made public, no disciplinary actions are being taken against such officials that are found to be contravening the legislation governing these processes. I am only seeing a failure on the ruling alliance, there is no progress made, none. Secondly, the issue of privatization is one element that is really distracting the progress of our economy. In same Auditor General’s report, it is said that, Government through its Social Security Food Programme is buying a loaf of bread for about R24-00 each.
This, I believe, is about three times higher than the selling price of bread in an open market; where you can get a loaf for about R6-50, if not R5-00 in some cases. But because in government, it is their own people who are unfairly receiving these tenders, it is okay, and in some cases, officials are being paid for services that they have not yet rendered. This is seriously distracting the progress of our own economy. Our people will continue to suffer for reasons unknown to them, whereas our own leaders will continue to accumulate wealth in an unjustified manner. And in this circumstance, I wish to code “black South African Politicians”.
I have spoken about this on several occasions to say, if you take someone who claims to be a communist, and then you deploy that person into capitalist governance, what fruitful end results can one expect? The fact is, if the like of ANCYL and YCL want individuals’ wealth to be nationalized, let us start with their own wealth, especially Julius Malema. Furthermore, I am calling for the people in government who call themselves Communists, to stop drinking expensive cognacs with a taxpayer’s money. This is so disturbing.
