Okay, from Johannesburg here's a contribution to `What is to be
done?' Read the daily feed that we generate each AM on the
degeneration of SA capitalism; I'm expanding the posting list
(which we started about eight months ago -- back issues
available), so if anyone is interested in following the situation
in this crucial fortnight prior to elections, RSVP to the personal
account ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) and I can sign you up... In return,
keep up the excellent PEN-L commentary (especially on value
theory) which several of us devour here, notwithstanding our
silence. A sample of our work, plagiarised from the main business
daily, follows -- (the `Marxists' advising the urban social
movement include yours truly)... Patrick Bond, Planact...
NEWSBRIEFS, April 12
- Financial rand collapses by 14%, to R5,7 to $; dual currency
down to lowest rate ever, with discount of 38% to commercial rand;
panic grips financial markets; commercial rand drops to R3,6 to $;
- Flitestar airlines shuts down; 950 workers to be fired; airline
was founded in 1991; complaints of unfair competition from SAA;
also a casualty was Luxair, which had flown between Jo'burg and
Luxemburg for 40 years; (THIS CORRESPONDENT WAS ON FLITESTAR'S
LAST-EVER FLIGHT, TO CAPE TOWN LAST NIGHT; PILOTS I TALKED TO
CLAIM
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION WAS THEIR
KILLER, AS THEBE'S SA EXPRESS NEEDED A COMPETITIVE VACUUM TO
OPERATE);
- Foreign mediators arrive;
- The South African National Civic Organisation (SANCO) releases
"Making People-Driven Developent Work" report (authored by Joe
Hanlon) and calls for much higher subsidy for housing (R17 500,
not R12 500); repeats call for retail housing bank; 5% of GDP
should be invested in housing;
- ANC continues probe into Winnie Mandela finances; earlier report
implicating her in hundreds of thousands of rands of misplaced
funds is termed by Ronnie Mamoepa authentic but incomplete;
- FAWU and major agribusiness set up another forum, the Wheat
Forum; at least this links to consumers, as stated aim is to
provide bread at lowest price;
- Investigation into Eskom begins, concerning potential
arms-to-Inkatha by renegade employees;
- Zevenfontein squatters in NW Johannesburg get Diepsloot land
from TPA; cost of development is R6 500 per site, with subsidy
from National Housing Board; residents also receive R6 500 for
materials, to be repaid at R40 per month; white neighbours
"bitter" and strongly opposed;
- Sanlam says financial markets not likely to settle down for next
three to six months;
- Violence flares again in Bekkersdal;
- Johannesburg violence is scaring off tourists; Australia and
Canada telling residents to stay the hell away;
- Significant increase in police suicides and depression;
- Zimbabwe to lose preferential trade terms today when GATT is
signed; exports hurt include tobacco, ferroalloys, coffee,
flowers, beef and sugar; but developing nations must wait ten
years before industrialised world dismantles textile protection.
NEWSBRIEFS, April 13
- ANC releases final Reconstruction and Development Programme;
ANC's Trevor Manuel says R39 billion will be spent on the RDP over
next five years from government (and Eskom), without raising
government spending as a % of GDP or increasing taxes; deficit
will actually reduce to international norms; secret defence
account to get the axe; further cuts in nuclear programme too; end
of rent boycotts at local government level would also help; RDP
could still change; no decision yet on ministry-level position or
on commission; Naidoo: "It is a national programme. It has
hegemony"; 1994-95 budget deficit will be 6,25%;
- Terms of reference agreed for international mediation between
Inkatha, ANC and government; Henry K.: "They have invited us to
close the remaining gaps"; (STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL
THESE YEARS);
- TEC calls for moratorium on public service strikes until after
election; strikes by nurses, ambulance workers, teachers and
police now underway in Natal, Venda, Lebowa and Transkei; police
strike in KaNgwane ending; Joe Slovo says TEC still has sympathy
for "justified grievances"; Cyril Ramaphosa says he hopes trade
unions will take call to end strikes "very seriously";
- Mandela tells grassroots supporters in Bophuthatswana to stop
harassing local chiefs; reinstating other more popular chiefs who
were deposed by Mangope will be subject of inquiry;
- SA Housing Trust to set up special retail bank as per SANCO
recommendations, says Wallie Conradie; Conradie "pleased" to have
been recognised by SANCO for "our achievements and abilities as
well as confirming certain areas of current shortcomings" (THAT'S
PUTTING IT MILDLY); new retail housing bank should start with SAHT
funds plus interim subsidy, says SANCO;
- SANCO invites bank representatives to join it at a New York
workshop on "the importance of sound relationships between banks
and communities"; SANCO's Mzwanele Mayekiso said the workshop,
arranged by Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsiblity, will
take place within a few weeks and will include JP Morgan and
Chemical banks; Mayekiso says point is to familiarise the SA banks
and SANCO with anti-redlining mechanisms; workshop to serve as a
"learning experience... good relations between banks and community
organisations do not hamper business";
- Finrand crashed on "Black Monday" due to foreign investors
stampeding from gilt market; R414 mn sold last week, as total
foreign disinvestment reaches R900 mn; but finrand struggles back
to R5,33 to $; Eskom E168 bond now at 13,3% interest rate;
- New big business grouping to bring together 18 federations under
name "Business SA";
- Flitestar closure due to deal with SAA a month ago; SAA to get
300 000 new passengers this year; new airliner Lionair also trying
to get into bidding on Flitestar;
- Voters elegible: PWV 4,9 mn; Natal, 4,6 mn; Eastern Cape, 3,2
mn; Western Cape, 2,4 mn; N.Transvaal, 2,3 mn; North West, 1,7 mn;
E.Transvaal, 1,6 mn; Free State, 1,6 mn; N. Cape, 440 000; total
is 22,708,152.
- Hawkers in central Jo'burg demonstrating, so Central Jo'burg
Partnership establishes forum to discuss new regulations; issues
include pavement leasing, lack of cleanliness and obstruction of
sidewalks, provision of trading and storage facilities, and
educational assistance;
- AWB men found guilty of vicious roadside killings last December;
- Public works programme could cost R12 bn a year, says Urban
Foundation; SA already spends R6,2 bn on poverty relief, and
R15-18 bn on infrastructure;
- CP starts campaign to recruit public servants for volkstaat;
- In Newcastle, 40 armed right-wingers from Northern Natal
Boerecommandos continue to occupy a vacant lot in the centre of
town, in protest over Natal state of emergency; they have a tent
and a little radio tower;
- Several top MK officers who were chosen as senior men in new
defence force had already worked for SADF as informants; Ciskei
intellegence chief Anton Nieuwoudt says he can't work with these
guys, and wants a fat pension now;
- AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT... (Business Day lead
editorial):
Groups such as the South African National Civic
Organisation (SANCO) have a useful role in a future South
Africa. True, SANCO, or at least many of its most
prominent leaders like Moses Mayekiso and his adviers, are
unrehabilitated Marxists who have made few allowances to
the way the world has changed over the past ten years, and
their perspectives are, for that reason, often rather
flawed. SANCO head office has become a rallying point for
the declining number of people of that persuasion. But
whatever SANCO's shortcomings, it will do no harm to have
left-wing "conscience" prodding those in the new
government who may be prone to adopt the fat cat attitudes
of their predecessors. And it also does no harm to engage
SANCO to ask for its views on, for example, development
strategy. Jay Naidoo, who is likely to be the new regime's
reconstruction and development czar, did just that six
weeks ago. The report of SANCO's development finance
commission, published this week, contains a great deal of
food for thought. It is not a blind attempt to destroy so
as to allow the new society to rise from the ashes - as
has been the tone of some previous SANCO statements. But
the proposals require a lot more thought, not least its
most immediate one calling for "a task group to be set up
urgently to carry out the breaking up of the Development
Bank of Southern Africa."... Many, if not all of the
homeland development corporations have questionable
records. The DBSA itself is relaatively new convert to the
needs of a post-apartheid SA, but has transformed itself
substantially... this is hardly the time to begin
dismantling functional institutions which, though
imperfect, have built a history of expertise, most
recently through a healthy process largely independent of
the whims of the government of the day...
