ARTICLE: WOMEN’S SHARE OF PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SPACE STILL UNDER THREAT
2017-05-31
Violence against women in South Africa has a long and tragic history.
Violence against women in South Africa has a long and tragic history.
A damning report has been compiled by well-respected academics and a seasoned investigative reporter. The word “coup” features prominently. The report titled The Betrayal of the Promise: How South Africa is being Stolen provides factual information and draws linkages between a powerful political elite and business individuals. It reveals a toxic cocktail of patronage and corruption, all the while seriously undermining the constitutional state. Its biggest takeaway: State institutions are being repurposed to the detriment of all South Africans.
The Report follows hot on the heels of another released last week by the South African Council of Churches (SACC). The SACC’s report too, references statements from current and former government employees on how individuals closely linked to the highest office in the land have gained control of some state-owned entities.
The last few months, if not years, have witnessed confusion, political grandstanding and outright unconstitutional references and threats in relation to the land question.
The eight Foundations’ National Dialogue Initiative (NFDI) was successfully launched on 5 May in Johannesburg. The vast majority of the 300 people – from all walks of life and racial groups – who attended and participated in the group discussions, viewed it as successful. It was indeed a historic initiative and the spirit was one of shared and straightforward talk about our common future. The agenda of the future dialogues was determined by group discussions whereby topics that will be discussed nationwide over the next two years were identified. The next step is to have launch events at a provincial level.
The NFDI launch resulted in two coincidental reactions.
First, 40 EFF members (mostly young people), fuelled by a Tweet from one of their leaders that dialogue with FW de Klerk and his Foundation was unacceptable, stormed in after lunch after breaking through security. Initially they stood around because the NFDI was just dividing into small groups. The EFF members even accepted an invitation to form their own group and put their issues on the agenda. However, when they realised that their leader’s Tweet did not command cooperation and dialogue but rather, disruption, they refused to give feedback on their discussion.
The FW de Klerk Foundation, and its Centres for Constitutional Rights (CFCR) and Unity in Diversity (CUD) decided to make property and land a focus
Playing Fast and Loose with State Resources
While some would call it a confession, others have referred to it as a disclosure. Newly-minted Energy Minister, Mmamoloko Kubayi, revealed to a Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on 2 May 2017 that South Africa’s strategic oil reserves were sold and not ‘rotated’ by her predecessor Tina Joemat-Pettersson, leaving the country reeling, yet again.
When the story broke almost six months after the sale of the 10 million barrels of crude in December 2015, then Energy Minister Joemat-Pettersson dismissed media enquiries as silly nonsense and that ‘rotating’ old stock of crude oil had a precedent way back when. There was little more concrete information forthcoming from her before she tossed the Strategic Fuel Fund (SFF), a unit of the Central Energy Fund (CEF), into the fray. The Department of Energy, as the largest shareholder of the CEF, was simply following the orders of its principle, the Minister.
While some would call it a confession, others have referred to it as a disclosure.
In this article, it is (again) suggested that the country needs a proper and credible land audit before we carry on with a debate that would otherwise remain emotional and divisive. It is, secondly, highlighted that some research has shown that we may have progressed further with land reform than we are sometimes led to believe. And it is thirdly pointed out that the real “land hunger” is not necessarily for agricultural land to farm, but for urban and peri-urban land to build houses and make a home.
Land reform, especially of agricultural land, is nowadays almost a shibboleth for South African politics. The reasoning of the associated rhetoric usually has the following elements:
“Soil is prosperity, and if you first possess land, you can buy all the other good things with that wealth.” And this usually refers to agricultural land.
“Historically, white people stole the land from black people and it has to be returned.”
“23 years post-democracy, black people still only own 9.8% of the arable land in South Africa.”
“There is a hunger for agricultural land among our people, like in Zimbabwe, and if we do not listen, we will follow the path of land occupation and confiscation.”
As the country stares into junk status, the hardest hit are the poor and unemployed. Contrary to the utterances of several (uninformed and or reckless) public officials that junk status allows South Africa to set its own rules of the game, there is no good that comes from higher borrowing cost, higher rates of debt repayment and its concomitant effect on domestic allocations for social services, infrastructure development and cost of food and transport, among a myriad of impacts of a downgrade to sub-investment ratings.
The status quo stands in contrast to a vision that was outlined by the National Planning Commission in its 2011 National Development Plan (NDP). Chapter three on Economy and Employment (Vision 2030) outlined a considered strategy whereby “achieving full employment, decent work and sustainable livelihoods is the only way to improve living standards and ensure a dignified existence for all South Africans. Rising employment, productivity and incomes are the surest long-term solution to reducing inequality”.
How will the NDP’s central goal to “expand employment and entrepreneurial opportunities on the back of a growing, more inclusive economy”, be held ransom by the current incompetent and unaccountable political leadership, on whose watch the economy has slid into a tailspin, with growth levels predicted at under 1% per annum.