STATEMENT: IT’S A JOB, ANY PAYING JOB
In his SONA earlier this year, President Cyril Ramaphosa promised that a national Jobs Summit would be held this year. This is now planned for 4 to 5 October. All constituencies represented in Nedlac will be present. In his statement leading up to the conference, the President highlighted the need for “creating decent work and building an inclusive economy”. So far, so good.
The critical premise for this Jobs Summit is the following. What can a Jobs Summit achieve in a time of deep recession when the economy is in a slump, when there is almost no economic policy certainty and when the cornerstone of the economy, property rights, is perceived to be under threat? Additionally, the presidential drive for international and national investment has been lukewarm at best. This despite Ramaphosa having lined up a dream team in April 2018 to sell SA Inc.
In a 30-page leaked document on land and the national question, titled What Then About Land Expropriation Without Compensation, the Thabo Mbeki Foundation (TMF) elucidates both historic context but crucially an analysis of a resolution of the ANC’s 54th National Conference in December 2017 on “land expropriation without compensation”. Without going into the settings of the document about the “glorious National Democratic Revolution” and its “victory of 1994”, the document presents some important perspectives about debates inside the ANC, especially about non-racialism and expropriation of land without compensation (EWC).
