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Greeting … and compliments of the season to you all.
I was too busy to post here during the last few months of 2014.
I had been writing and then road showing (here and abroad) an argument that suggested pressures acting on the ANC might, ultimately, save the organisation from its slow-motion collapse into what can best be described as a kind of criminal conspiracy.
On the whole, as they say, it was a deliberately positive counter to the life draining wails of despair that were starting to keep me from my sleep.
In the ANC there are thousands of pockets of resistance, but the overall character of the organisation and the way it has embedded itself with the state is deeply reminiscent of a huge wasp I watched yesterday stun an even bigger spider, implant it's eggs in the juicy arachnid abdomen, stuff the bundle in a piece of dry cane, where the baby wasps will soon hatch and begin eating the spider in a precises way that keeps the host alive long enough for the new crop of wasps to fly off to carry on the business for which they were born. I believe some of such wasps are able to mess with the spider's DNA in such a way that the spider will spend its last dying moments protecting the baby wasps.
This is an almost perfect metaphor for the behaviour of the hijacked centre of the ANC.
But I don't think that is the whole – or even main – story, and below is the introduction to a longish report I wrote in October last year with my colleagues, Joan Tshivhinda (quantitative analyst) and Jeff Schultz (economist), that argues we have a better than even chance of being in a much improved situation by …. about 2020. That the pressures acting on the ANC could powerfully reshape the organisation for the better.
This is purely the introduction to the document. Joan did lots of quantitative work on the 2014 elections and Jeff did the same for the definition and class structure of SA society – so I think I am going to need more direct permission from BNP Paribas Cadiz Securities to publish the whole thing, but I hope to do so soon.
But for now:
Introduction – Against a Dark Background
(That title was made up purely for the blog post … the original title was "SA Political, Quantitative & Economic Research – emerging middle class lights up the gloom.)
There are significantly more important forces shaping our politics than the bad behaviour of our politicians.
- Deep within the electorate a rapidly growing black African middle class is beginning to shape political and economic outcomes more profoundly than the size of the group implies.
- We believe this group will determine many major outcomes for our politics and economics in the next few years.
- Emerging from our analysis is a first (and best) case scenario in which the ANC goes through a process of renewal and recalibration over the next few years, powerfully reclaiming the defecting black African middle class and rolling out economic policies that will be optimum for financial markets and business.
- However, we also describe several significantly threatening alternative scenarios, including further splits in the ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC) slipping below 50% of the national vote and losing the major metropolitan areas, the centre of opposition shifting toward some combination of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and the emergent socialist party… and even more gloomy potential paths we could, with a low probability, travel down.
Many institutions of political representation in South Africa (most obviously political parties and trade unions) are undergoing turmoil – within themselves, in competition with each other and in rapidly changing levels of popularity.
here are various methods we can use to seek to explain the turmoil. Much of the mass media focus has been on the character and integrity of the President (of the ANC and the country) Jacob Zuma, and his allies – and we attribute much of the turmoil to the Zuma camp's alleged attempts to capture a lion's share of available rents and patronage – and to keep their principal out of the courts. While we do not deny the role of individuals (as heroes or villains) in shaping history, we think it obligatory to examine changes in the deep structural features of society, especially in processes of class formation, and the changing needs of production, to seek explanations for the changing face of our politics.
Our basic premise is that 'class formation' among black Africans was held back by apartheid, and the legislation and state that defined that system. But in the 1960s and 1970s the global economy began to shift in its character, and in its requirements of the function of labour, goods and capital markets. In South Africa the economy shifts toward services and manufacturing and requires a more settled, urban, educated workforce, the members of which are able to purchase the goods and services being produced by the new economy.
For the first time in almost 100 years, black South Africans could realistically aspire to be urbanised, settled, housed, better educated and able to afford the goods and services of the new economy. And this set the emerging class powerfully against the political system of apartheid that understood its survival and the survival of white dominance depended on the defeat or diversion of these aspirations.
It is more useful and has more explanatory power, to understand that underlying the campaigns of resistance and repression and the attempts by the apartheid government to rejig its systems that controlled the movement, work prospects and political aspirations of black people were the reasons for the inexorable rise of the black African middle class.The 1976 uprising, the formation of the UDF in 1983, the formation of Cosatu in 1986 and its clear alignment with the still banned 'Congress Movement', the strikes, the school boycotts, the growing campaign for international isolation, the rapid reappearance of ANC symbols, leaders and flags in South Africa in the mid-1980s, the escalation of the 'armed struggle' and then the unbanning of the liberation movements, the release of leaders, the tricky negotiations at Codessa (Convention for a Democratic South Africa) 1 and 2 and finally the first democratic election in 1994 – could be seen to have been caused, orchestrated and guided by wise leaders and clever tacticians from both sides. And we don't believe that statement is wrong, but we do think it misses the main point.
The apartheid state tried everything to head off the rise of the Africa middle class:
- the 'hearts and minds' campaigns in black communities – which only at its most trite consisted of giving out copious amounts of sweets and propaganda from the top of armoured vehicles;
- the attempt to establish a Tricameral Parliament to give political representation to Coloureds and Indians and the vigorous attempts to build the Bantustan[1] administrations and promote the system of local black councils[2] – attempting to ensure that 'the oppressed' would not find unity in opposing the regime – and ensuring that black African aspirations were diverted to stony ground and
- the campaigns of repression, including raids into neighbouring states, troops deployed into townships and state-funded assassinations squads and other 'dirty tricks' campaigns.
The not so subtle point we are trying to make was this was all actually driven by the African middle classes struggling to come into being (led and ridden by various political formations) and held back by the apartheid state and legislative regime. Thus, the emerging black middle class was both the engine and the prize of the contest between the liberation movement and the apartheid regime.
We draw theoretically on both the Weberian and Marxist definitions of class. With the defeat of the apartheid state, long suppressed class formation and differentiation has exploded in black communities. We attempt to describe and characterise the black African middle class (possibly classes) using a mixture of methods:
- Our classification has a minimum per capita income threshold which will be significantly above the middle of the income distribution for black South Africans;
- We will show the group is the fastest growing segment of the Living Standards Measures (LSMs) table since 1994 and we will argue that it is politically influential and powerful beyond its numbers, consumption power and voting preferences;
- Finally our definition will include the fact that members of the group will be more likely to have tertiary education (or professional or technical qualifications) and be more likely to live in Gauteng.
If we conceive of our political parties, electorate and the interplay of powerful other interests as part of a complex ecology with eco-niches and selective Darwinian pressures, then much of the turmoil in the ecosystem (the formation of the EFF, the torturous debates about affirmative action in the Democratic Alliance (DA), the splitting off from Cosatu of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) and the formation of some form of socialist alliance, the details in the drop in support for the ANC in this last election, the extreme anger about Jacob Zuma's alleged diversion of public assets, his attempts to avoid the law and avoid various forms of constitutional curtailment) can best be explained by the growing assertiveness of the class we describe.
We overlay these categorisations with a close examination of the fact that the African National Congress lost approximately 11% of the national votes it won previously from across the geography of the urban black African areas of South African industrial heartland of Gauteng in the May 2014 general elections. We point out that in areas that were more representative of the middle class we defined above, these losses were greater.
We conclude that the pressures being brought to bear
- could split the ANC further;
- could drive the party further toward its flirtation with a sort of rural populism driven by patronage and traditional patriarchal authority;
- could drive the party further into the hands of the South African Communist Party which has been the main beneficiary of the rise of Jacob Zuma; and
- could provide space for the EFF, the DA and Numsa's in potentia socialist party to grow to the point that the ANC drops below 50% vote.
We hope/predict that the middle classes and the Gauteng ANC, as the part of the party most exposed to the middle classes to which we refer, is already in the process of preparing to draw the party back from the brink it is approaching. The Zuma faction is entrenched, but it is our belief that the brand value being lost under his leadership will inevitably lead to a correction.
In general, our conclusion will be that the negative political consensus about South Africa is overdone, because attention is not being given to the deep, underlying structural drivers of change in the country, namely the coming into its own of the black African middle classes.
How history works – the origins of the black African middle class and what really caused apartheid to fall
Change in the structure, priorities and labour processes of the global economy began to accelerate in the 1960s and 1970s with a relative shrinking of primary resource extraction and heavy industry. South Africa, like much of the rest of the world, experienced relative growth in the manufacturing and services sector.
Thus the economy began to require a settled, better educated and skilled labour force, and one that could procure the goods and services produced by the new economy.
Black South Africans could, for the first time, realistically aspire, as a group, to be more settled, housed, better educated and be the consumers of certain goods and services to which their parents had had no possible access. Thus their interests melded with the similar interests of the already existing black African middle class that had managed to take root in the stony apartheid ground.
This nascent middle class had long been deliberately stunted by the apartheid state – and certainly segregated – to keep it from competing with its white counterparts, but in the views of Nzimande[3] (yes the very same one[4]) quoted in Southall[5], the group could be broken down into the following categories:
- The bureaucratic petty bourgeoisie – basically officials tied closely to the central apartheid state, but also town and city administrators and in the Bantustans (reliable allies of the apartheid state in Nzimande's view);
- The civil petty bourgeoisie – civil servants and state employees like teachers, nurses and clerks – and from whose ranks Nzimande argues was drawn much of the leadership of the national liberation movement (clearly entirely unlike the bureaucratic types mentioned above);
- The trading petty African bourgeoisie – which Nzimande eccentrically orders into several groups based on their ability to align with the liberation movement, but concluding that those belonging to the National African Federated Chamber of Commerce (NAFCOC), while clearly pro-capitalist, were useful allies to the liberation movement.
- The corporate petty bourgeoisie – basically black employees in major companies which, since the early 1970s, had "sought to legitimise capitalism through the discourse of the 'free enterprise system". In Nzimande's views (as summarised by Southall) this group was "simultaneously hugely frustrated by limited opportunity and white managerial racism, uneasily situated as it was between capital's attempts to create a black middle class and white management's defence of its own class interests".
The point of all of this is that almost all academic research agrees that there had been an "enormous increase in the African middle class between 1960 and 1970" Harold Wolpe in Southall 1977) "indicating the growing upward mobility of blacks into clerical, technical and non-manual jobs and of Africans into skilled employment". (Southall) [6]
There are two observations that are worth making:
- The group definitions in the literature do not distinguish between skilled and upwardly mobile workers and the classes of traders and small business owners and civil servants.
- Because the definition is loose the group appeared almost impossible to count, with Samuel Nolutshungu (1983) estimating 121,948 members of the black middle class by 1970 and Wolpe (1974) putting the number at 1,315,800 for roughly the same time.
However, for our purposes here these are not problems because our argument is that, under the heel of apartheid, was growing a class of people whose expectations were realistically rising and this led to rapidly heightening political resistance.
At the height of apartheid, the oppression faced by all black South Africans, and especially Africans, was the political basis for downplaying growing class differences and it appears to us that the sense that change was possible, that the aspirations were realisable, was a multiclass phenomenon among all black South Africans.
It would be equally difficult to describe the sophistication, brutality; or give a proper timeline of the apartheid state's attempt to survive the onslaught – and the consequences of its failure to do so.It would be impossible here to adequately describe the growth and momentum of resistance in the 1970s and 1980s. From the massive strikes in Durban in 1973 through the 1976 uprising, the campaign to defeat the Tricameral Parliament from 1983, the strikes, the bombs, the stay-aways, the States of Emergency from July 1985 and the growing criminalisation of any form of opposition – the profound growth of international solidarity for South Africans who were living under apartheid – and rising costs of resisting and defending the system.
However, for our purposes, it is interesting to examine one aspect of the state's reaction when it realised how rapidly and powerfully black expectations were rising in the 1970s with the changing requirements of the domestic and global economy.
The Wiehahn Commission submitted an interim report to Parliament in May 1979 which recommended:Under pressure from South African and global businesses, especially after the Durban strikes in 1973 and the uprising in 1976, the National Party government made a serious attempt to reform the industrial relations system and the linked system that governed the rights of black Africans to move from place to place (influx control).
- Legal recognition of Black trade unions and migrant workers
- Abolition of statutory job reservation
- Retention of the closed shop bargaining system
- The creation of a National Manpower Commission, and
- The introduction of an Industrial Court to resolve industrial litigation[7]
The Riekert Commission reported at about the same time and recommended:
- Black workers already in urban areas with the 'requisite permission' to be there should receive 'preferential treatment' in finding employment – and thus create a stable labour force and encourage a "Black urban middle class"[8]
- Other Black workers could be removed after 72 hours of looking for work in an urban area and influx control would be tightened.
It is not our purpose and beyond our ability to explain the complex mechanism by which the apartheid legislative regime and its state pursued its ends but what is noteworthy for our purposes here is that National Party strategist and securocrats understood what was happening and they attempted to accommodate and divert the force that was coming at them, namely a rapidly growing group of politically marginalised, controlled and subjugated people who had seen the possibility of a better life and were prepared to struggle for it.
What happened in the 1970s and 1980s and in South Africa would have been strongly predicted in a piece of academic work presented by US sociologist James C. Davies in 1962: Toward a Theory of Revolution" in the American Sociological Review, (27)1 5-9.
We have deliberately left out the role played by individuals, organisations and leaders in building political and military resistance, in mobilising the majority into defiance and then in skilfully negotiating a peace, a new constitution and democratic country.Simply put Davies argues that in societies where expectations of improvement in the conditions of life begin to rise, they inevitably outstrip the real improvement. Finally daring to hope for the removal of influx control and the right to live and work where they chose, black South Africans instead got the mean-spirited liberalisations of the Wiehann and Ricket commissions – and the revolts driven by an unacceptable gap between expectations and reality followed as night follows day.
It is our contention that what broke apartheid, with its laws, its state, its political parties, its cultural institutions, its security apparatus and its ideology was precisely its attempt to dam the flow of people's rising aspirations – and we are still in the catastrophic flood of that dam having burst.We have done this because we want to emphasise that the deep and powerful historical forces of class formation and economic change tend to drive politics, not the other way around. The best politicians are those who realise these limits, who really understand that their profession is the art of the possible. One may slightly divert and shape the torrent but one's power is strictly limited.
The Black African middle classes today – an introduction
In this sense the pressures that built up against the apartheid edifice are the same, and the same energy is driving South Africa into the future. It is the long suppressed black African middle class, having steamrolled apartheid out-of-the-way and now moving through our politics and economy with the same irresistible power… and its expectations continue to rise.But again, while we think these programmes have obviously had a major impact – and are likely to be tightened up – the real 'explosion' and driving force have been the aspirations of ordinary people who have long been denied the opportunity to seek to the good life, to educate their children to higher levels than was open to them and to accumulate assets. The ANC government has opened the doors, but it is impossible for those doors to be opened wide enough and it is essentially a market force that causes people to push, shove, clump and burst through the crumbling entrance as fast and as far as possible.The formal removal of apartheid legislation in the 1990s, the deliberate and vigorous and largely successful attempts to change the demographics of the state and civil service, including that of the major parastatals, a host of legislation designed to pressure private companies to put equity in black hands and to appoint black senior managers, the use of licensing in the minerals sector and, importantly, the use of state expenditure to promote black entrepreneurial activity have been important pillars of government policy and have undoubtedly been major forces in promoting a black African middle class.
Apartheid, among its myriad impacts on the shape of South African society, suppressed 'normal' class formation and segmentation among the black population. It was, in fact, and for a long time, a systematic attempt to do just that – so as to protect whites from the competition.
We have described in the previous section how various black African middle-classes as well as upwardly mobile sections of the working class emerged despite the best efforts of the apartheid system.
[1] A Bantustan was the cornerstone of the system: black people were allocated (often arbitrarily) to one of 10 territories where they would live and be politically represented. The idea was to concentrate members of particular language or 'ethnic' groups in these places and black people would eventually only be in 'South Africa' as migrant workers from these homelands. Four of the homelands, Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda and Ciskei were declared independent, but this was never recognised outside South Africa.We concluded, however, that the apartheid system was destined to fail as soon as the economy required something different from black South Africans and black South Africans could therefore realistically aspire to something different.
[2] A major social project defined in the Black Administration Act 38 of 1927 – endlessly amended to promote the co-optation of influential individuals in the black community – that in turn led to the burnings and killing of such councillors, most notably through the infamous 'necklacing' (placing a burning tyre around the victim's neck).
[3] Nzimande, B. (1990). 'Class, National Oppression and the African Petty Bourgeoisie: The Case of African Traders', in Robin Cohen, Yvonne Muthien and Abebe Zegeye (Eds), Repression and Resistance: Insider Accounts of Apartheid. London; Melbourne; Munich; New York. Hans Zell Publishers: 165-210.
[4] Blade Nzimande is General Secretary of the South African Communist Party and has been since 1998.
[5] The ANC and Black Capitalism in South Africa, Prof. Roger Southall, Democracy and Governance, Human Sciences Research Council Seminar 2003/23
[6] The ANC and Black Capitalism in South Africa, Prof. Roger Southall, Democracy and Governance, Human Sciences Research Council Seminar 2003/23
[7] From the excellent South African History Online, a non-profit resource: http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/wiehahn-commission-report-tabled-parliament (accessed 10/24/2014 19h54)
[8] http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/recommendations-riekert-commission-investigate-employment-conditions-black-workers-are-t (accessed 10/24/2014 19h54)
Here are some bits and pieces I highlighted for investors over the last few weeks. Thanks as always to BNP Paribas Cadiz Securities for allowing me to republish these snippets here … it is also a touch more information that most people require, but I post it here for the record, if nothing else.
I write these under considerable time pressure – deadline 06h30 0n Monday mornings. They can sometimes be a bit scrappy, but mostly (although with exceptions) still relevant a few weeks later. Where I say 'yesterday' or 'today' (or whatever) I mean: relative to the date in the highlighted headline above each section. The newest is on the top – stretching all the way back to the ancient history of Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma at the US-Africa summit in Washington.
Lesotho, South Africa … and the Guptas
Lesotho Prime Minister, Thomas Thabane, was assisted by South African special forces soldiers to flee to South Africa in the face of a military backed 'coup' on early Saturday morning. The 'coup' (or 'coup attempt' – both terms are used extensively in the coverage) was allegedly orchestrated by Deputy Prime Minister Mothetjoa Metsing.
The key features of the event were the co-ordinated encircling of police barracks by the military, the disarming of the police and the seizing of the national broadcaster in the country's capital Maseru on Saturday. (Sunday Times, Voice of America, City Press, Sunday Independent – 31/08/2014).
The Sunday Times story suggests the 'coup' was sparked by Friday's firing of army chief Lieutenant-General Kennedy Kamoli by Lesotho's King Letsie. The City Press reports that South African troops are on standby for further interventions.
Lesotho army spokesman Major Ntele Ntoi has denied there was a coup and says the army's actions were purely to disarm police "who had been preparing to provide weapons to political parties" – Sunday Times.
Thabane, in a phone interview with Voice of America, said he was not going back until his safety was secured, that there was a situation of "total indiscipline" in the army and that soldiers were "running around the streets, threatening people" and "quite openly stating that they want my neck" – see here for VOA coverage.
So what?
This is almost too bizarre to type out, but here goes: a significant portion of the coverage of the event refers to the recent controversy surrounding the issuing by Thabane of diplomatic passports to the Gupta brothers (who we know better as key Zuma and ANC backers and funders, see Mail and Guardian coverage "The Grim Tales of the Brothers Gupta" for background).
At the time of the appointment Thobane said "(t)hese people (the Guptas) are good friends of the ANC and we have good relations with the ANC … I was introduced to them by ANC president [Jacob Zuma] and other ANC officials… I then appointed them to help scout for investment in my country. They have influence in a number of countries that can help Lesotho" – see here for that story.
In highly interpenetrated and interdependent systems of patronage and corruption, unsuccessful attempts to defend one part of the system can unravel the whole system and cause destabilisation throughout the linked networks.
Jacob Zuma's Russian rest
Jacob Zuma visited Russia this week for six days. He had a light schedule and was, unusually, only accompanied by State Security Minister David Mahlabo and Deputy Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Nomaindia Mfeketo. There has been widespread but largely fruitless speculation about what the President was doing in Russia. (See City Press's "Jacob Zuma's mysterious mission to Russia" and former leader of the opposition DA Tony Leon in the Sunday Times in an opinion piece titled "How much more abuse can the constitution take from Zuma?" … unfortunately can't find a link to that.)
So what?
The crisis faced by Russian President Putin is, by all accounts serious and urgent – and it might seem unlikely that he would have made time for a casual tête-à-tête with Jacob Zuma. Thus we can assume that Putin was in part motivated by wanting to demonstrate he still has friends in an increasingly chilly world. Also there is the sourcinig of agricultural products to fill the gaps left by European and US sanctions against Russia over Ukraine – a job South Africa could be well placed to do.
However Jacob Zuma appeared less to be representing South Africa and more on a personal visit – with several reports, including from government, that he would use the opportunity to rest.
It is difficult to escape the perception of two embattled leaders involved in a perhaps complicated exchange and attempting to secure their present and future:
- there is the upcoming ZAR850bn nuclear build programme that probably depends on Jacob Zuma staying at the helm in South Africa – Russia reportedly hopes to be central to that programme.
- Jacob Zuma's key spy chiefs all reportedly resigned when he (Zuma) refused to allow them to investigate the Gupta brothers as a serious threat to national security (see back story on that here).
- Jacob Zuma faces unprecedented blowback at home, including the possibility of a public discussion around the original fraud, corruption and racketeering charges against him (see here) now that the famous Spy Tapes are to be handed to the Democratic Alliance in the official opposition's attempts to have the National Prosecuting Authority's decision not to charge Zuma reviewed.
- Also in yesterday's Sunday Times was an important 'leaked' story that South Africa had sent a large group of intelligence officers to be trained in Russia and that "the Russians have recruited at least four of our people, which means we are sitting with double agents" – according to an unnamed source "with inside knowledge of the programme" – Sunday Times 31/08/2014.
It is not inconceivable or unreasonable to consider the possibility that Jacob Zuma is asking for intelligence and security coverage and offering in return nuclear contracts and public expressions of support. It's not a perfect theory, but some kind of explanation is required.
Ruling alliance divides itself neatly on defending or attacking the public protector – is Jacob Zuma becoming a cost the ANC cannot bear much longer?
Zwelinzima Vavi, Cosatu general secretary, broke ranks with the ANC on Saturday arguing that the Public Protector's recommendations on resolving the Nkandla dispute (in which over ZAR200 million of public money was spent irregularly on Jacob Zuma's private house) should be implemented immediately … "all of them, without exception." Vavi went on to say that criticism of Madonsela were "absolutely disgusting, to say the least"– Vavi in the Sunday Times 31/08/2014.
So what?
While the main structures of the ANC and its government attempt to close ranks around Jacob Zuma as the multiple scandals unfold and the threats against him grow, the hegemony is crumbling and the edges.
The ANC still has a comfortable electoral majority although as I have pointed out on many occasions, at least part of the electoral declines the ruling party experienced in May, especially in the sophisticated metropolitan areas of the economic heartland of Gauteng, have to do with perception of corruption and mismanagement at the top. It is difficult not to concur with the implicit meaning of the headline of Barney Mthombothi's column in the Sunday Times yesterday which reads: "ANC courts its own destruction".
We must consider that the cost of defending Zuma's multiple infractions is starting to tell on the ANC (as it is telling on the party's alliance with Cosatu).
I would reason that the ANC's brand value is being seriously impacted by Jacob Zuma's presidency and that, almost as a natural law, such a threat to value will call into being an attempt to defend the value by those who have the most to lose (other leaders and members of the ANC)
It's the future, so I am guessing, but I think it is an even chance that Jacob Zuma will be moved into retirement within the next two years and that the official reasons will be related to his health.
(This added as I post these comments here: the above several paragraphs might be wishful thinking. If you want to see a well reasoned opinion that takes the opposite view, see the interesting Daily Maverick column by Ranjeni Munusami arguing that Zuma will see out his second term. I suspect that I just can't live in a world where the thugs get away with it for ever (this paragraph was edited after posting – Ed)
Ebola spreads to Senegal – World Health Organisation warns of 'rapid hike' in infections
The Ebola (haemorrhagic fever) epidemic 'sweeping' West Africa has killed approximately 1500 people and the first cases have been confirmed in Senegal, having up until now being confined in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and Nigeria.
So what?
Ebola was first identified in the north of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1976 and outbreaks have been common in Central and Western Africa since that time. The disease is isolated and confined to countries with weak public health systems and high levels of poverty. In all the news coverage, the headlines tend to be more alarming than the content of the stories. There are various experimental drugs in trial (including one made jointly by GlaxoSmithKline and the US government which has achieved high levels of success) – Sunday Independent – 31/08/2014.
Pay Back the Money … or we'll huff and we'll puff
Julius Malema and his cohorts in the National Assembly didn't quite blow the House down on Thursday last week during President's Question Time.
They disrupted parliament by demanding that Jacob Zuma pay back a portion of the costs of upgrades to his Nkandla home, as specified by the Public Protector Thuli Madonsela. Their chanted refusal to accept the stock brushoff from Zuma and the poor management of the showdown by Baleka Mbete, Parliamentary Speaker (and ANC National Chairperson), is the leading edge of yet another storm that concerns Jacob Zuma's integrity – and the ability of the constitutional mechanisms to hold him to account. (Here for a useful and interesting take on festivities.)
But political theatre becomes something more serious as the Public Protector and the ANC and its allies go head-to-head on the issue
Several Sunday papers reported yesterday ( 24/08/2014) that the Public Protector Thuli Madonsela has sent a letter to Jacob Zuma criticising several aspects of his response to her Secure in Comfort report and specifically arguing that he (Zuma) did not have the constitutional right to set aside or review her findings or to allow Police Minister Thathi Nhleko to do so (in essence Zuma has asked Nhleko to determine what his – Zuma's – financial obligations are with regard to the Nkandla security upgrades).
According to constitutional law expert Pierre de Vos Madonsela is well within her rights. "This is not legally controversial," he says, quoted in today's Business Day (25/08/2014). "The president is either receiving appallingly bad legal advice or he is wilfully abusing his power and thwarting the law to protect himself in order to unlawfully benefit financially from the state."
Both the ANC and the SACP came out late yesterday afternoon strongly critical of Madonsela, arguing that she had overreached herself, especially as a parliamentary committee was currently dealing with the matter.
So what?
The clash in parliament on Thursday made a significant media impact and it seemed for a moment that the damage being done the ANC by the party endlessly having to defend its wayward leader could conceivably lead to some profound political realignment.
But that feeling was brief.
The EFF has 25 MPs in the National Assembly, to the ANC's 249 and the DA's 89. The chances are, the ANC in parliament will work out a set of rules that essentially disciplines the EFF (already MPs may be suspended for not more than 30 days and have their salary docked for the same period).
Jacob Zuma is a master at diverting crises like this into long (perhaps endless) processes that have a degree (or at least a semblance) of legitimacy and constitutionality. And there is a parliamentary process dealing with Nkandla underway and whether this process is an attempt to 'set aside or review' the Public Protector's findings could be the subject of years' of constitutional debate, such that many of the players will be long gone by the time it is resolved.
There is considerable stability in a system so tightly bound within itself through links of patronage and shared loyalties – although I suspect that when such a system eventually unwinds, it unwinds quickly and perhaps catastrophically.
Jacob Zuma is off for a week in Russia – to work and to rest – and the game will go on. "The visit will further strengthen the excellent bilateral relations with a view to consolidating and opening new avenues towards job creation, skills development, exchange and transfer of technology and trade and investment," said the Department of International Relations yesterday.
There may be some future moment when the ANC could face electoral losses because of public perceptions about corruption of its leaders, but that day is still far enough ahead to not impact (in any meaningful way) upon behaviour in the present.
(So … that isn't a direct contradiction on what Nic thought on September 1, but it is more than a little close. I strongly suspect it might be a biorhythm, or hormonal thing – Ed)
Julius Malema … how did he 'Pay Back the Money'?
Julius Malema appears in court today to face questions about where he got the money to pay his R18 million tax bill. According to Rapport newspaper (24/08/2014) the South African Revenue Service (Sars), would ask for a two-month extension of Malema's provisional sequestration to determine where he got the money to repay his tax debt each month. The newspaper reports that "impeccable sources" allege that "cigarette smuggler Andriano Mazzotti was helping to pay his tax debt" – as re-reported at the Independent Online 25/08/2014 – see here. (I don't know the Afrikaans language Rapport newspaper well – it is part of Naspers's Media24 stable – treat the claim with maximum caution). (Not because of Naspers of Media24 – for so are they all, all honourable men … the caution is purely because the claim is faintly outrageous, which doesn't mean it's not true – Ed)
So what?
While Julius Malema's insistence that Jacob Zuma account to parliament is welcome, we should be careful to not lose our sense of discernment. Julius Malema himself has faced a long list of accusations similar to those he is making against the ANC and Jacob Zuma.
Land and wage reform – unintended consequences
Two interesting articles in the Sunday papers hint at some of the negative unintended consequences of attempts to protect the interests of the marginalised and vulnerable workers on South African farms.
Firstly, the Sunday Times (24/08/2014) has a colour piece titled "Good intentions pave the road to rural hell" in which the 1997 Extension of Security of Tenure Act is assessed as having "led to as many as a million farmworkers being evicted countrywide".
Secondly, the Sunday Independent (24/08/2014) records an interesting discussion about the impact of 'minimum wage' determinations on employment. The article shares different views on the matter, but concludes that in SA agriculture "the impact was devastating: Employment fell from 819 048 jobs in 2002, just before the law came into effect, to 623 750 jobs in 2003 and continued to decline to 555 549 jobs in 2007 – a net loss of almost a third in five years."
So what?
The ANC has signalled an urgent desire to 'get serious' about land reform. As we have mentioned previously 'the land question' seems to suggest to the ANC an answer to a host of social needs: employment, housing, food security, and black economic empowerment, to name only the most obvious. Racially unequal land ownership patterns (it is generally quoted that SA had 87% of land in white hands at the 1994 transition and that less than 8% has been redistributed since – see here) are also a driver of political dissatisfaction, perhaps helping feed the growth of the EFF and other 'radical' forces emerging in the society.
For now government is preparing a host of new legislation and regulation all the while signalling to commercial agriculture that it wants to be met half-way. There will probably be unintended consequences of government's land reform and rural development programme (including negative impacts) but the lessons from the banking sector (for example with regard to the formulation of the National Credit Act) is that it is always a better idea for the private sector to go out and engage with government and attempt to shape legislation than it is to wait and deal with the future when it is a fait accompli.
Mining, oil and gas sectors: legislative and regulatory drift and a scary audit
Mineral Resources Minister Ngoako Ramatlhodi didn't calm nerves last week during his address to the third annual Mining Lekgotla. The minister is overseeing two significant regulatory processes causing anxiety in these sectors, namely a major audit of mining companies' compliance with the 10 year targets of the Mining Charter and the signing into law of a bill amending the Mineral and Petroleum Development Act of 2002 (which the private sector thought it had essentially cautiously agreed to in exchange for it – the private sector – being consulted in detail about the regulations that would arise from the legislation).
With regard to the audit, Minister Ramathlodi said: "(w)hile the review process on the implementation of the Mining Charter is still under way, initial results suggest that whatever compliance we may have achieved, much more work still needs to be done" – Business Day -14/08/2014
With regard to the legislation the Minister said he had not been informed by the Presidency whether or when the bill would be signed into law. "There are legal teams that look at any legislation coming before the president and they advise him. When they do so we'll act on that advice" – Business Day ibid. Download Minister Ramatlhodi's full address at the DMR website here.
So what?
Firstly, the audit obliges the mining companies to meet various 'transformation' obligations and targets by 2014 e.g., 26% of the company must be owned, through "full shareholder rights", by HDSA (Historically Disadvantaged South Africans) by the end of this year – as a precondition for the retention of the mining right. Go to www.dmr.gov.za to see the "Mining Charter" and the "Scorecard for the Broad-Based Socio-economic Empowerment Charter for the South African Mining Industry" to get a full view.
2014 is the year in which several definite obligations must be met by the mining companies and there is a degree of nervousness by investors and management as to how strict the audit will be, how much leeway the ministry will give and how severe the consequences of failure will be.
Purely the administrative aspects of the reporting process are enough to be a serious burden for smaller mining companies, according to Nic Dinham, Head of Resources at BNP Paribas Cadiz Securities
The apparent prevarication in signing the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act Amendment Bill, after months of careful negotiations between the department and the mining companies, has caused the industry to worry that deals struck and compromises made might be up for renegotiation. There was a general expectation that the constitutionality of the amendments would need to be tested and examined (especially government's 20% proposed free-carry interest in all new exploration and production rights in the oil and gas sector). It appears to me that the delays are adding to a more generalised sense of uncertainty about the growing regulatory burden and costs associated with continuing to mine in South Africa.
Amcu set to go on the offensive at Num's last toeholds in the Platinum sector – non-cyclical risk factors in the SA labour environment escalate
Nic Dinham (BNP Paribas Cadiz Securities Head of Resources referred to in a previous section) said yesterday that in the platinum operations where Amcu is not (yet) the major union (at several mines, but including those operations at Aquarius Platinum and Northam Platinum) there were significant indications that Amcu was close to recognition thresholds (specific to each company) and that it was reasonable to expect increased labour unrest at the particular operations and companies where Num was clinging to a majority.
"During the recent result presentations, several companies reported that operations previously dominated by Num are showing signs of losing ground to Amcu, especially in the Rustenburg areas", said Dinham.
"This is the case at Aquarius Platinum as well as at Northam where Amcu membership has risen to 30% and 15% respectively, just short of both companies' recognition levels. Clearly, this could be the harbinger of more labour storms to come. At the same time, only small numbers of workers in the existing Amcu fortresses switched to NUM after the end of the strike. So, despite all the rational arguments about the financial impact of the strike on labour, Amcu appear to have won the propaganda war with the mining industry" – Nic Dinham, 20/08/2014.
So what?
There are a number of important implications, not least of which is the confirmation (and deepening) of the implicit defection of mineworkers in the Platinum sector from a key ANC aligned union (Num) and the continued disintegration of previously powerful trade union federation and ANC ally, Cosatu.
In some ways this frees the ANC (and government) to decide on economic policy without having to kowtow to Cosatu, but it will also raise anxieties in the ruling party about the narrowing of its base – and a diminishment of its hegemony and moral authority.
None of that is necessarily a bad thing. It is my opinion that our legislative and regulatory environment has tended to suffer from a lack of clarity and focus as a result of the ANC attempting to keep a number of different legacy constituencies (and sectional interests) happy and on-board.
However, it is also worth noting that my general expectation of a deteriorating labour environment is strengthened by concerns about labour unrest driven by further contestation between Amcu and Num. This, together with a coming trial of strength in all (or most) Cosatu unions that will accompany the impending Numsa split out of Cosatu will be a strong, non-cyclical, driver of labour unrest for the next 18 months. Jeff Schultz (BNP Paribas Cadiz Economist) and I recently suggested that these strands driving labour unrest, along with what we expect will be a major confrontation that will accompany the lead-up to the expiry of the current 3-year public sector wage agreement in March 2015, will keep labour risks at elevated levels in the South African investment environment for at least another 18 months.
Cyril Ramaphosa – a hard week down at the Commission
Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa last week faced an avalanche of criticism and heckling at the Farlam Commission (which is investigating the killing of 44 people at Marikana on and before August 16 2012 in the context of the protracted strike at Lonmin mines in the Rustenburg area at that time).
Cyril Ramaphosa was called to the commission to explain his actions in the lead-up to the Marikana killings. Ramaphosa was on the Lonmin board at the time and in an email to Lonmin managers he said: "(t)he terrible events that have unfolded cannot be described as a labour dispute. They are plainly dastardly criminal and must be characterised as such. In line with this characterisation there needs to be concomitant action to address this situation." In another email he urged then police minister Nathi Mthethwa to "take appropriate steps". In both these cases I have added the emphasis.
At the Farlam Commission hecklers shouted "Blood on your hands" (City Press 11/08/2014) during Ramaphosa's cross-examination. Hecklers wore T-shirts with several different slogans criticising Ramaphosa's wealth, for example one showed a buffalo in reference to the fact that Ramaphosa bid – unsuccessfully as it turned out – R19.5 million for a buffalo cow and her calf at a wildlife auction a month after the Marikana killings in 2012.
So what?
There is a high level of speculation as to whether Cyril Ramaphosa will succeed Jacob Zuma as president (when the current presidential term expires in 2019 or at some earlier date due to Jacob Zuma's purported ill health.) There appears to me to be a widespread assumption in the financial markets that Cyril Ramaphosa, as an experienced businessman and an experienced negotiator and conciliator who was central to easing the transition at Codesa 1 and 2 in the early 90s, would be more sensitive to the needs of the private sector, more compliant with global capital markets and, generally, run a cleaner and more efficient ship.
Implicit in that list of attributes is the person who Ramaphosa would be cleaner than, more conciliatory than, more understanding of private sector needs than, is Jacob Zuma. It is impossible to know either that Ramaphosa really has such attributes relative to Zuma or that it is really or primarily those attributes that make Ramaphosa a more attractive choice than Zuma for the financial markets … or, in fact, whether the 'financial markets' really makes these kinds of distinctions.
It is my impression that Jacob Zuma's rise to power and performance as president has been accompanied (and in several cases directly caused) increased political risks associated with investing in the country. Almost any successor would probably be welcomed by the markets. However we would be cautious about seeing Ramaphosa as the knight in shining armour. He is badly damaged by his link to the Marikana killings (unfair as that may be) and he has not yet established a significant constituency within the ANC. The fact that he is a rich man can play both ways; it gives him resources to build his case but it makes him vulnerable to accusations of conspicuous consumption and being out of touch with common people. It is also inescapably true that his wealth has been accumulated more as a result of 'empowerment deals', the accumulation of large slices of equity, rather than the involvement in any of the underlying activities (mining, banking, health care etc).
More than anything we must keep front of mind that much ANC policy and politics is determined in the forums of the party – long in advance of such policies and politics becoming law and regulation. The particular character of leaders makes a difference, but in the South African case, not as big a difference as it might elsewhere.
The noise around land reform is (partly) bluster designed to get commercial agriculture to act voluntarily
Urging Commercial farmers to take voluntary steps 'advancing the transformation project in the agriculture sector', ANC Secretary General Gwede Mantashe said "change that is imposed is more painful" – Business Day 14/08/2014. Mantashe told attendees at a conference on land reform and food production that land reform was necessary if South Africa was to deal with the "ugly past of racial land dispossession of black people" and that farmers must never allow themselves "to be victims of change" – Business Day ibid.
So what?
We previously described in some detail some of the legislative initiatives around land reform and one of the points we made about assessing the risks associated with the land reform initiative is reinforced by Gwede Mantashe's choice of words.
The ANC feels keenly its failure to successfully complete a significant process of land reform and redress – and is, in part, being punished for that failure by the (still slight) electoral traction achieved by the ostensibly more radical Economic Freedom Fighters on their debut in the general election on May 7 2014.
However, the ANC feels, at least as keenly, the threats to investment that would result if property rights were ever threatened by an unruly and uncertain 'land reform' process à la Zimbabwe.
Commercial farming does not have the handy (from the ANC's point of view) equivalent to the mining sector's mineral rights to attach to a number of 'transformation' objectives. The ANC would be extremely cautious about bluntly attaching a 'licence to farm' (or in fact a 'licence to operate any business') directly to 'transformation objectives'. There is a line beyond which such rights and obligations could constitute a nationalisation in fact and might be both unconstitutional and, certainly, a serious barrier to future investment.
Thus the ANC, in the form of its secretary general, is snapping at the heels of domestic commercial agriculture, attempting to herd it towards the 'transformation' objective, putting the argument that this is the national good, but hinting that a bite on the ankle could be the laggard's reward. It is an open question as to whether farmers would respond to such incentives with greater compliance or with resistance, both covert and overt. However, for now, we think the ANC's (and therefore government's) land reform bark is worse than its bite.
Bits and pieces
- Jacob Zuma put out a report last week which he and his spokespeople claim is a satisfactory response to the Public Protector Thuli Madonsela's, "Secure in Comfort" report into the upgrades to the President's private Nkandla residence in which she finds several faults with the President's actions and inactions. The delay, over many months, of a response from Jacob Zuma to Thuli Madonsela was ostensibly as a result of him (Zuma) awaiting a report from the Special Investigating Unit. However, on Friday a spokesperson for the Public Protector said Zuma's report was not a response, adequate or otherwise, to Secure in Comfort. ""That means a document that comments on the public protector's report or indicates action taken or to be taken to implement remedial action in compliance with section 3(5) of the Executive Members Ethics Act must still be submitted to Parliament by the president" – my emphasis added.
- Jacob Zuma's team is preparing to hang expense overruns and incorrect categorisation of some items as 'security related' on Jacob Zuma's architect, Minenhle Makhanya. The Mail and Guardian reports that the "Special Investigating Unit has lodged a R155-million claim against Makhanya" – 15/08/2014.
- And in other news Bruce Koloane, the former chief of state protocol who was shouldered with the blame for the landing of a large private wedding party at a secure military base by the close Zuma allies and business partners the Gupta brothers and family last year, was nominated by Jacob Zuma as Ambassador to The Hague. In August last year, Koloane pleaded guilty to all charges relating to his involvement in authorising the controversial landing of the jet.
- It's not (just) idle mischief putting these bullets together. If the President's own actions around his accumulation of personal assets and special favours to his friends can impact on the formal judicial, disciplinary and constitutional oversight functions, if his party can go to extreme lengths to protect him from the consequences of his actions in accumulating personal wealth and influence, it is unlikely that private companies will be trustful of, or willingly and enthusiastically compliant with, the 'transformation' agenda emerging from the state, government and party he leads. Ultimately the private sector needs to believe that the value of its various social obligations ends up benefiting those who need the assistance the most. This is the price the private sector seems prepared to pay for stability and growth. Any sense that the public purse is hijacked or that equity transfers and affirmative action obligations have become a kind of asset that can be hoarded and dispensed as patronage by the politically powerful will cause the 'transformation' objective – and much else – to fail.
'Cabinet leaning to break-up Eskom' – Business Day 05/08/2014 … I would be extremely surprised
Business Day reported that the idea of breaking up Eskom and privatising some of its power stations "is starting to gain traction in government circles, as a team of cabinet ministers and government officials seeks ways to alleviate the company's financial crisis and restructure its business" – Business Day 05/08/2014.
The governing ANC's alliance partner, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) vowed the next day to fight any such privatisation "to the bitter end" arguing that electricity price inflation, driven by the 'commercialisation' of the utility in the first place, was "one of the key constraints" on economic growth and an important reason South Africa "is not creating decent jobs the country so desperately needs" (catch the full August 6 Cosatu statement here.)
On the same day Lynne Brown, the Minister of Public Enterprises, said "I want to indicate that there is a portfolio of options for the interministerial task team to consider. To my knowledge Cabinet has not discussed the matter of privatisation and there is no need to unnecessarily raise temperatures around this matter" – City Press Online, 06/08/2014. The 'task team' to which she refers was described (in the same story) as "representing energy, public enterprises and the treasury" and further, that the findings of the team had not yet been made public.
So what?
This is, supposedly, a defining issue for the ruling faction of the ANC and its allies in Cosatu and the SACP. Much of the motivation for backing Jacob Zuma (and ousting Thabo Mbeki) was – apparently – that Mbeki's policies were a species of Thatcherism (especially the plan to privatise the major state utilities). The alliance backing Jacob Zuma defined its historical mission as the combating of this "1996 class project", a catch-all phrase for neoliberalism, fiscal rectitude and the 'Washington Consensus'.
It might well be true that the breaking up and privatisation of Eskom is an urgent necessity – or even a precondition for recovery from our dire economic state – but it is a political nonstarter, requiring the complete breakup of the alliance of groups that hold power, and is therefore vanishingly unlikely to happen, even symbolically.
National Prosecuting Authority in free fall and intelligence services are extensively deployed on behalf of senior politicians and criminals – and the storm is beginning to batter against the South African Revenue Service – this is as serious and urgent as it is confusing and complicated
There is an on-going meltdown at the heart of the criminal justice system which is increasing risks in doing business with, or in, the areas administered by the South African state.
Here are only a few of the most recent visible features of the (complex and confusing) disintegration:
- Jacob Zuma has asked the National Director of Public Prosecutions Mxolisi Nxasana to give reasons why he should not be suspended. The apparent motivation is that Nxasana has problems associated with his security clearance (owing to his brushes with the law, including a murder charge, when he was a younger man). However, almost all the coverage and analysis suggests that the 'real reason' is Nxasana has pursued investigations of key Zuma allies in the NPA and Crime Intelligence Division of the South African Police Service and his (Nxasana's) actions threaten to lead, eventually, to fraud and corruption charges being reinstated against Jacob Zuma.
- Award winning journalist Mzilikazi wa Africa published his memoir last week which includes a detailed account of how Jacob Zuma and his allies vigorously undermined the credibility of the first National Director of Public Persecutions Bulelani Ngcuka by spreading the false information that he (Ngcuka) was an apartheid spy.(See an interesting examination of this thread from Business Day 07/08/2014 here.) In here is the source code of much of the chaos in the prosecuting authority and intelligence service: Bulelani Ngcuka led the original investigation into the allegations of fraud, corruption, money laundering and racketeering against the then Deputy President Zuma, concluding that there was "prima facie" evidence that Zuma was guilty, but not enough to win in court – a statement to which Zuma, not unreasonably, strongly objected.
- "Sex, SARS and rogue spies" announced the front page headline in City Press yesterday (10/08/2014). The accompanying stories allege that senior SARS official, Johan van Loggenberg, has been the subject of a 'honey trap' operation by the State Security Agency "Special Operations Unit". The story is Byzantine, but the important bit is the detailed allegation that the secret spy unit operating against van Loggenberg has also been used to discredit and smear a 'anti-Zuma' camp in the NPA and in Crime Intelligence. Bizarrely, the Special Operations Unit supposedly includes drug dealer Glen Agliotti. (Read some of this story here and here … if you have the time or the patience.)
So what?
This level of political and criminal infiltration into key state institutions and functions, especially of the security services, the prosecuting authority and the South African Revenue Service raises real questions about judicial, regulatory and legislative certainty in the operating and investment environment. Uncertainty about the application of law, the integrity of the criminal justice system and the functioning of the revenue service must all be considered by anyone wanting to invest in South Africa or in assets regulated by South African institutions of state and law. Frankly, given the deep connections between the instability in these key sectors of the South Africa state and the rise to power of Jacob Zuma I am pessimistic that we have the capacity to fix this problem while the current administration is still in power.
The National Prosecuting Authority has appointed highly respected retired Constitutional Court judge Zak Yacoob to head an inquiry, or 'fact finding mission' into its dysfunctional state. Unfortunately Yacoob almost immediately (on Thursday last week while speaking at a workshop at the University of the Witwatersrand) happened to mention that he would have "set aside" the judgement that found Jacob Zuma not guilty of rape in 2006, because he would have put less emphasis on the alleged victim's sexual history – see here. An outraged African National Congress said it learned of Yacoob's comments "with shock and dismay" saying they "opened old wounds" and were "an attack on principles of our jurisprudence and the judiciary." Yacoob attempted to clarify his comments here but either way he is no longer likely to be the instrument that cleans up the National Prosecuting Authority.
Cyril Ramaphosa at the Marikana Commission today as succession debate begins
Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa will have to explain today at the Marikana Commission what he meant when emailed other senior Lonmin managers just before the August 12 2012 killing of 34 striking mineworkers at Marikana and said: "(t)he terrible events that have unfolded cannot be described as a labour dispute. They are plainly dastardly criminal and must be characterised as such. In line with this characterisation there needs to be concomitant action to address this situation." In another email he urged then police minister Nathi Mthethwa to "take appropriate steps".
So what?
It is unlikely that the Commission will find anything untoward in Rampahosa's messages. He was, after all, doing nothing other than responding to the growing violence of the strikers and Lonmin's increasing anxiety about the strike. We are of the view that there is some political harm done Ramaphosa by his identification with mine management and government – and the police killing of the 34 mineworkers. There is a considerable degree of unease within the broad structures of the ANC and the electorate about the Marikana killings. The ANC is obliged to stand with its Deputy President on this matter, but it can't be comfortable. This will play against Ramaphosa (although perhaps not decisively) in the coming succession contest in the ANC.
Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma
Chairwoman of the African Union, fresh from pride of place at the US-Africa summit in Washington announced yesterday that she was undecided as to whether to stand for a second term in the AU (her current term expires in
2014 2016) This is inevitably raising questions about whether she will compete with Ramaphosa to succeed Jacob Zuma as president of the country.
So what?
She is in the running – and is clean and capable. She is perhaps more of an insider in the ANC's power elite than Cyril Ramaphosa and her winning this race might mean (unwelcome) continuities with the current administration. It's too early to call it one way or another, but the ANC Women's League has indicated that it could back Dlamini-Zuma (or Baleka Mbete) while the Gauteng ANC has indicated it could back Ramaphosa. Officially succession would only take place after elections in 2019, but there are constant rumours that Jacob Zuma might want to retire early (or be forced to do so due to failing health). An early retirement of Jacob Zuma would probably be a significant positive for perceptions about South African political risk, but the specific circumstances of such a move would determine whether it would, in fact, be positive, negative or natural.
… which I entirely doubt will be made glorious summer by this sun of KZN when he gives his
5th nth State of the Nation Address this evening.
I am not, as my children might have said, very amped for this.
The only ray of light so far (I am watching on eNCA) was a brief interview with Floyd Shivambu who suggested it should be a 'state of the resignation address' … that if the President couldn't make it to the Cabinet Lekgotla 'then it would be best for him to just come here to explain that he is just too old and tired and to say goodbye' – or words to that effect.
I thought I would use the time to publish some bits and pieces that I have sent to my clients over the last week.
The winter of our discontent – as the labour relations cycle meets a secular trend
Every year at this time South Africa is engulfed in strikes as annual wage agreements are traditionally renegotiated in several sectors of the economy. Every year analysts and journalists pontificate widely about the dire labour relations conditions – and the gloom deepens because this all takes place in winter.
Three factors this year are probably going to make the outlook more negative and threatening.
Firstly, the post national election winter has, since 1994, been characterised by spikes in service delivery protests. The causes of this phenomenon are not fully understood, but it is likely that:
- voters confronting a hostile winter and declining services levels – so soon after being promised the earth by politicians – are likely to be unsettled;
- local politicians who failed to make party lists begin mobilising factional support, perhaps to stand as candidates in 2016 local government elections, perhaps to discredit those whose positions they covet.
Secondly, the platinum strike is being driven by a number of 'political' factors – as discussed previously.
Thirdly Numsa is showing clear signs that its political aspirations are, as we predicted, going to drive deeper and more robust strikes and labour unrest. One sign is the growing violence as Numsa attempts to widen its action at the Ngqura container terminal in the Coega Industrial Development Zone in Port Elizabeth. The South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (a Cosatu union) is opposing the Numsa strike and is calling for its members to stay at work at the Transnet facility. However, both Transnet and Satawu were quoted on radio (SAFM 20h00 news broadcast 08/06/2014) as decrying the burning of houses and cars of the workers who were at work. The SATAWU spokesperson warned that the situation had similar dynamics to those that were present in the platinum sector in 2012 – that this 'is just like what happened with Amcu (same broadcast).
Additionally, Numsa is preparing to lead 220,000 workers out on strike from the metals and engineering sector next month. "The bargaining negotiations have spectacularly failed to produce the desired outcomes as expected by the thousands of our members in the sector," spokesman Castro Ngobese said in a statement quoted in The Herald (5/06/2014). Numsa's core demands includes a 15% pay rise and a one-year bargaining agreement, the Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of SA (Seifsa, which represents 23 employer associations) has offered an inflation-linked increase of 6.1 percent.
So what?
This is the cycle meeting the secular trend, with each driving the other deeper than either would have been driven ordinarily. Numsa is in the process of breaking away from Cosatu and is beginning to vigorously compete with other Cosatu unions in overlapping sectors (container terminals, the big electricity generation projects and down and upstream mining and metallurgy operations). This is, at least partly, about Numsa preparing to set up a 'left' party to compete for votes in the future. Comparable (but not identical) dynamics are driving the platinum strike. A winter with 'normally' increased social and industrial unrest will probably become unusually bleak and unwelcoming in the months ahead. The impact on GDP growth and on the possibility of ratings downgrades are both important considerations.
X Rated
Both Fitch and Standard & Poor made references on Friday (13/06/2014) to increased political risk when they changed their views on the South African government's willingness and ability to pay the sovereign debt.
Fitch revised the outlook for South Africa to negative from stable and affirmed the country's long-term foreign and local currency issuer default ratings at BBB and BBB+ respectively. S&P downgraded both the country's local and foreign currency ratings by one notch from A- to BBB+ and BBB to BBB- respectively, but moved its outlook negative to stable. None of this is a catastrophe but of interest to us here is the central role of 'politics' in the given reasons for both Fitch's and S&P's changes.
Fitch says it most baldly in the press release announcing the change in outlook (my emphasis added):
"Following its election victory in May with 62% of the vote, the African National Congress government faces a challenging task to raise the country's growth rate and improve social conditions, which has been made more difficult by the weaker growth performance and deteriorating trends in governance and corruption. This will require an acceleration of structural reforms, such as those set out in the comprehensive National Development Plan (NDP). In Fitch's view, the track record of some key ministerial appointments and shortcomings in administrative capacity mean this is subject to downside risks."
Fitch gives amongst the key drivers of its more negative outlook: "Increased strike activity, high wage demands and electricity constraints represent negative supply side shock."
Standard and Poor's downgrade was similarly motivated but adds some additional concerns:
"While we think that President Jacob Zuma's newly elected administration will continue the policies of his first administration, which controlled fiscal expenditure and fostered broadly stable prices, we do not believe it will manage to undertake major labor or other economic reforms that will significantly boost GDP growth".
My initial take on the new Cabinet is supportive of these motivations.
In addition both agencies made extensive reference to the negative industrial relations environment – and the negative impacts on GDP growth and government revenues. There is a significant political dimension driving industrial unrest – as I have argued above.
So what?
The validity of the actual ratings and ratings outlook of these agencies is much disputed[1] but the issues they use to motivate their views are interesting because they (the agencies) are cautious; clinging to a sort of 'average view' of investors. So if political criticism makes its way into the text (as is the case in both these instances) we are obliged to consider that these may represent, or may come to represent, a general view in markets.
South Africa has a small open economy and liquid financial markets and the difference that policy makers can make to economic outcomes is limited. But even within those limitations too many political choices (certain cabinet appointments, corruption controls, delivery performance and the honest brokering of labour contestation) are either not helping or are actively negative.
[1]No-one could have failed to notice the excoriating criticism of the credit rating agencies (CRAs) after their generalised failure to accurately assess the risks associated with the collateralised debt obligations allegedly because they were mostly issued by the CRAs biggest paying clients! However, it is the opposite with sovereigns: "It has also been suggested that the credit agencies are conflicted in assigning sovereign credit ratings since they have a political incentive to show they do not need stricter regulation by being overly critical in their assessment of governments they regulate." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_rating_agency (accessed 13h56 16/06/2014.
The National Directorate of Public Prosecutions
I dealt with this issue last week, but it is making bigger and more anxiety provoking headlines than ever.
So what
The NDPP was drawn into the fight between Mbeki and Zuma and since that time has limped along to the rhythm of one or other faction aligned to competing interests within the ANC seizing or losing power in the institution. This is not a situation in which one could safely choose one set of 'good guys' and back them against another set of 'bad guys'. The situation is complex but relates primarily to the on-going struggle to either ensure that certain senior political leaders are brought to justice or to ensure that they are not.
The NDPP is one of the most important institutions of the justice system, and without certainty and stability here it is impossible to have certainty about the operating environment for any business in the country. This is a serious problem and it appears to be getting worse under the current administration.
Platinum Strike
(This is a bit dated, but you might be interested in my rude remarks about the new minister.)
"Government is ready to wash its hands of the protracted wage strike by platinum mineworkers in Rustenburg" according to the Sunday Independent 08/06/2014. Mines minister Ngoako Ramatlhodi threatened to pull out his inter-ministerial task team if a settlement was not reached at the last scheduled government facilitated meeting, which is due to take place today.
In addition, a formal ANC statement delivered by Gwede Mantashe at a press conference in Luthuli House in Johannesburg last night after the ANC weekend lekgotla[1] characterised the strike in a way that seemed to destroy the remote possibility that Ramatlhodi could have made a difference anyway:
"The articulation of AMCU position by white foreign nationals, signalling interest of the foreign forces in the distabilisation (sic) of our economy.
The direct participation of EFF in the negotiations, and thus collaboration with the foreign forces.
These two factors led the lekgotla into cautioning the Ministry of Mineral Resources in handling the facilitation with care. There were questions about the role of the state in workplace disputes where there are clear rules guiding it."
This statement is interesting precisely because it borders on the bizarre
So what
The ANC statement indicates shows just why the new ANC minister cannot be an honest or effective broker in the negotiation – and it is therefore unsurprising that he is preparing to withdraw his team. The ANC is compelled to believe that this strike is only not 'negotiable' in the normal manner because the real issues driving it are political and not about wages at all. The ANC might be correct about the strike being 'political' but the party itself is culpable of having politicised the strike by attempting to defend its Num ally against the vigorously growing Amcu, by alienating workers by characterising their union as 'vigilantes' and by the 'Marikana massacre itself.' s – There was never any real possibility of this government mediating between the parties or influencing the outcome.
Concerns about property rights
The South African Institute of Race Relations and AfriBusiness (AfriSake) have recently released warnings about property rights in South Africa. A proper assessment of these warning would require specialist legal opinions, but our own assumptions have long been that the South African Constitution provides adequate protections for private property (see here) and the ANC government is unlikely to risk fiddling with these principles.
However it seems to be a basic due diligence requirement to keep an eye on the risk – perhaps more so since Jacob Zuma spelled out at his Cabinet announcement (reiterating many recent ANC and SACP statements) that we are entering a "more radical" phase of economic transformation.
With this is mind, we reproduce the basic summary of legal concerns AfriBusiness and the South African Institute of Race Relations have raised in their research (note that below is a direct quote from the AfriBusiness statement linked above):
- The National Development Plan has as its aim the transfer of 20% of the agricultural land in a district to black recipients, at only 50% of the value as determined by the state (in terms of the Property Valuation Bill).
- The verdict of the Constitutional Court in April 2013 in the case of AgriSA v the Minister of Minerals and Energy distinguishes between "deprivation" and "expropriation". After the verdict the state is able to dispossess and redistribute property, as long as the state does not assume ownership of the property and act (sic) only as custodian.
- The Green Paper on Land Reform aims a radical redesign of property rights, with inter alia a type of freehold on land which will drastically limit the rights of owners. Within this context a Land Management Commission is proposed, which will have discretionary powers regarding disputes over title deeds.
- The policy proposal by the Minister of Land Reform, Gugile Nkwinti, for "Strengthening the rights of workers working the land" aims to transfer 50% of the land to the workers, commensurate with their term of service. No compensation will be paid to the owner.
- The Expropriation Bill poses that expropriation may be used for the public interest and public goal. The Bill is not only applicable to land but will cover all types of property. Public interest and public goal are determined in an ad hoc manner and both have restitution as aim.
- The Promotion and Protection of Investment Bill allows state intervention in investment processes. The Bill explicitly provides for expropriation at less than market value. All in the name of so-called restitution. Any property used for commercial purposes is targeted by the Bill.
- The Infrastructure Development Bill aims to eliminate so-called inequalities in infrastructure. The Presidential Infrastructure Coordinating Commission is granted the authority to expropriate in the public interest and for the public goal.
- The Spatial Planning and Management of Land Use Act aims at centralized planning of land ownership. It proposed so-called spatial justice by integrating low and high cost housing in residential developments.
- The Extension of the Security of Tenure Amendment Bill expands the rights of occupants and their dependents. Evictions are strictly controlled and the Amendment Bill means a significant loss in control over property.
- The Restitution of Land Rights Amendment Bill creates further political and economic uncertainty regarding the future of property rights.
- The Rental Housing Amendment Bill proposes stricter regulation of the rental property market. Rental Tribunals will be established to hear disputes and will be able to determine increases in rent.
- The National Water Amendment Bill and Policy Review prohibits the trading of water rights and proposes a use-it-or-lose-it principle for water rights. Equality (including racial transformation) becomes the criterium (sic) for the allocation and re-allocation of water rights.
Consume that with the requisite amount of salt but keep an eye on the detail.
[1]Sesotho loan word meaning court or community council meeting; used in the South African context a "lekgotla is a meeting called by government, Cabinet or the ANC to discuss strategy planning". Wikipedia accessed 04h30 09/06/2014.
I am on my way to London to speak to the funds that buy and sell South Africa's corporate and government bonds i.e. the market that sets the price at which the world is prepared to lend us money.
Daily I become more convinced that the South African political economy is, like quick clay "so unstable that when a mass … is subjected to sufficient stress, the material behavior may transition from that of a particulate material to that of a fluid."
The other metaphor I was fiddling with was: all the cards have been thrown in the air and where they will land, nobody knows. (I'm sure there is an elegant song or poem that says something like that, any help there would be appreciated … that request is the WordPress equivalent of a #twoogle – Ed)
But before I get onto the more lofty questions about the future of life, the universe and everything, I thought I would send you my latest news update – so you can see the gradually building case for my sense that everything has changed. (Thanks as always to BNP Paribas Cadiz Securities for generously allowing me to republish this – albeit a few days later – here.)
- A new socialist party appears on the horizon of South African politics … it's not all good news, but nor is it all bad
- Murmurs about vote rigging – a leading indicator of political instability
- Mining policy meets with surprising levels of push-back from the private sector – in the Business Day at least
- The future push for the NDP, Hitachi and the ANC, final takes on the budget and why South African telecommunications infrastructure is a very fat golden goose
Numsa confirms it will launch socialist party
The biggest union in the country is effectively in the process of being expelled from the ANC- aligned Cosatu and has announced its intention to establish a party, provisionally to be called the United Front and Movement for Socialism.
"We need a movement for socialism," general-secretary Irvin Jim told reporters in Johannesburg on Saturday.
He (Jim) continued on to argue that 'leadership of the national liberation movement as a whole had failed to lead a consistent radical democratic process …' (Jim paraphrased in numbing detail in SABC Online, Sunday, 2 March 2014, 17h49.)
Numsa has been given seven days (from last Thursday) by the Cosatu NEC to provide reasons why it should not be suspended from the federation. The main issues motivating the suspension are that Numsa has been openly critical of the ANC and the Cosatu leadership and that Numsa has begun competing with, especially, the National Union of Mineworkers, in defiance of Cosatu' s one-industry-one-union slogan.
So what?
This is unfolding much as predicted. The ANC under Jacob Zuma has decided (or been compelled) to impose discipline on the ruling alliance and force a degree of compliance with the various policies of the ANC and its government. The discipline sought by the ruling group within the ANC is motivated by apparently divergent concerns. On the one hand, Jacob Zuma and his allies are attempting to get the left-wing to stop attacking them (Jacob Zuma and his allies) as corrupt and incompetent. On the other, Jacob Zuma and his allies are attempting to force a degree of support for the National Development Plan (NDP), a policy that the left-wing generally sees as 'neo-liberal', anti-poor, anti-working class and conservative in fiscal and monetary terms.
There is a fine tension here between positives and negatives (for the audience NB writes for … mainly fund-managers – Ed). The NDP has been widely welcomed in financial markets. But the corruption associated with the holding of high office in South Africa is becoming something of a crisis for investors of all stripes. It is as inaccurate to think of Jacob Zuma's Nkandla faction as purely the champion of market friendly policy as it is to think that Irvin Jim, Zwelinzima Vavi and Numsa are purely the anti-corruption champions of South African politics.
For now, we need to watch for the formation of the socialist party, probably at or before the year-end. Such a party will have a multiplicity of impacts including (but not limited to) undercutting areas of ANC support and forcing the ANC towards finding policies that stimulate economic growth.
(By-the-way I feel it is likely that this new party will have more substance and longevity than the EFF and through a variety of possible mechanisms – including some kind of alliance or even amalgamation – could subsume much of the EFF support and intellectual leadership. But that sort of speculative concoction will follow this post some time over the next few days.)
UDM says beware of vote rigging
The Sunday Independent (2 March) reports that Bantu Holomisa of the United Democratic Movement claimed that 'rogue elements' in the Independent Electoral Commission will help rig the 7 May election to 'facilitate the underperforming ANC':
"The ANC is very concerned (about shedding votes), hence they are pinning their hopes that those rogue elements will run the elections, so rigging will be on the high. There is no doubt about that" – Bantu Holomisa in the Sunday Independent, 2 March 2014.
So what?
The effectiveness, reliability and constitutionality of the Independent Electoral Commission have been important guarantors of aspects of South African democracy. While Holomisa's allegations are not substantiated (in the aforementioned interview), the fact that such allegations are made can be an important leading indicator of long-term political stability. People and political parties must trust the electoral system if they are to accept the outcome of elections.
(Holomisa's 'rogue elements' probably refers to Pansy Tlakula, chairperson of the IEC, who was found last year by Public Protector Thuli Madonsela to be guilty of improper conduct and maladministration with regard to the R320 million lease contract for a new head office for the IEC. Tlakula is currently challenging Madonsela's finding in courts. The IEC and the Public Protector are both institutions established in terms of Chapter 9 of the South African Constitution with specifies that they are designed to "strengthen constitutional democracy in the Republic" – Chapter 9 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996.)
Mining policy pushback – in the Business Day anyway
Today's Business Day leads with a story claiming that there are 'growing rumblings' from the mining industry about the 'once empowered, always empowered' equity provisions in the Mining Charter. The issue in this case is that the government will this year audit the mining companies' requirement to be at least 26% black owned. Neal Froneman, CEO of Sibanye Gold, is threatening to go to court to have Sibanye's empowerment transactions counted in the audit, even if the black beneficiaries have since sold out of their equity.
Mining companies are issued licences pursuant to them meeting certain criteria with regard to Black Economic Empowerment, employment, social, community and labour obligations.
So what?
The series of stories in the Business Day about this matter smacks a little of a campaign by the newspaper – nothing wrong with that but then consume them tentatively. The story is worth reading just to catch the tone and tenor of Neal Froneman – who sounds fed-up to the point of rebellion. Catch it here.
The article quotes Mike Schroder, a portfolio manager of Old Mutual's gold fund, at a mining conference last year: "One cost that I can't chart is BEE (black economic empowerment). It doesn't affect the bottom line or the EPS (earnings per share) or PE (price:earnings) ratios, but every time a BEE deal is done, our pension funds, our provident funds, our unit trusts have to chip in."
I expect these legislative interventions by the government to strengthen not weaken over time. It is my initial impression that part of the ANC's answer to the populist incursions onto its territory by the EFF will be to significantly strengthen 'transformation obligations' on the private sector – and in return the government will back the private sector against the labour unions. I think these trends will become visible before the end of the year and will be accompanied by greater emphasis on the NDP and by the axing of the ANC's left-wing elements. Thus, the ANC will attempt to reconfigure South African politics, basing itself more tightly on the emerging property-owning and middle classes than previously, and in a loose alliance with the private sector. This feeds into my 'hoping for the best' view of last week – although we should be cautious, because these complicated trade-offs will as likely end in tears as smiles.
Bits and Pieces
- Last week, Helen Zille, leader of the opposition Democratic Alliance, became involved in an unseemly Twitter spat with City Press journalist Carien du Plessis. Actually, it was only Zille doing the spatting and (probably to Zille's mortification) du Plessis wrote a calm and thoughtful defence of herself in the City Press on Sunday (2 March 2014). In the Twitter exchange, Zille essentially accuses du Plessis of apologising for being white (as far as I can make out). Zille is feisty and combative and there have been several 'scandals' around her phraseology and views. She definitely skirts the boundary of what is acceptable in the highly circumscribed and sensitive language of political debate in 'post-apartheid South Africa'. Will this lose the DA any votes on 7 May? Will it gain the party any? I have no idea.
- Business Day editor Peter Bruce's Monday morning column, '
The Cutting EdgeThe Thick Edge of the Wedge: The Political Basis for budgets (if he perchance comes to these lonely shores and find's that error, I ask his forgiveness in advance) should be required reading for anyone interested in the speculative intersections between South African politics and economics. This morning, he claims that a normally reliable informant, someone "spectacularly close to the Presidency", told him that Trevor Manuel will stay on in government as a super-minister in the Presidency in Zuma's next administration, that other 'left leaning ministers in the economics cluster' (he probably means Ebrahim Patel in EDD and Rob Davies in DTI) will be shifted aside, that the ANC will hold its vote above 60% on 7 May, that the new administration will make "a big and forceful push after the elections to begin implementing the National Development Plan", that the EFF and Numsa's new party will not fly, and that Zuma will secure his safety from prosecution for fraud post his presidency by ensuring that his ex-wife and African Union President Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma is his successor. (The argument in Peter Bruce's article being: "She would not put the father of her children in jeopardy – which I don't necessarily buy, but is interesting anyway). This view concurs quite closely with my view articulated last week that it appears, shorn of its 'left' and 'right' factions, the ANC will be obliged (and set free) to pursue vigorous economic growth if it is to win the 2019 election.
- Hitachi has bought back the ANC stake (held by investment company Chancellor House) in Hitachi Power Africa as the shareholding constituted 'a conflict of interest'. You don't say. Hitachi Power Africa won R38.5 billion of contracts from Eskom for the Medupi and Kusile power plants. Nuff said.
- The weekend press had a few 'final takes' on the budget. The two I found most interesting were Peter Bruce, in his aforementioned column, writing that it was "a budget of almost unsurpassable banality", and Numsa's Irwin Jim saying at his Johannesburg press conference on Saturday that the budget "more than anything else confirms the right-wing shift in the ANC/SACP government". I won't say anything.
- Telkom CEO Sipho Maseko wrote a paid-for 'open letter' in the Sunday Times yesterday accusing MTN SA and Vodacom of acting against the public interest (of expanding access to and lowering costs of a 'modern communications infrastructure') by opposing lower termination rates. Maseko claims that Telkom had subsidised Vodacom and MTM to the tune of R50bn over two decades. Professor Alison Gillwald of Research ICT Africa was quoted in today's Business Day (by the excellent Carol Paton) as saying "Telkom is right. MTN and Vodacom had an extraordinary termination rate asymmetry with Telkom over 20 years." She went on to say that, during the period of asymmetry, the private companies rolled out "enormous infrastructure that has improved access." Finally, she says: "While one wouldn't want to kill the golden goose, she was a very fat goose" … which I thought was a good enough turn of phrase to deserve republication anywhere.
* That is deliberately missing an apostrophe – the '*' makes you think it might be there and you are forced back and forward between the noun and verb meaning. (Get a life! – Ed.)
The previous post was headlined "The ANC's surprising return to form" and it stayed as the face of this website throughout a week in which we were reminded of the nest of corruption our president emerged from.
… oh yes, and a week when the ANC in parliament passed the Protection of Information Bill – with sneaky abstentions from three of their MPs. (Gloria Borman actually abstained, Ben Turok walked out and Salam Abram said he would have abstained if he could have made it to the sitting.)
… and a lot else has gone wrong such that it is difficult to even pierce the gloom.
Many of these issues have been done to death, but briefly on Mac Maharaj:
The Mail&Guardian weekly newspaper and the Sunday Times (and now City Press) revealed different pieces of evidence that appear to prove that French arms company Thales channeled money to Mac Maharaj, then Minister of Transport (also, crucially, architect of Zuma's rise and key strategist behind Zuma government) a few months before Thales was awarded a credit card licence tender (worth about R265 million) by Maharaj's department in 1996.
The more revealing points are that the alleged middleman, Zuma's financial advisor Shabir Shaik, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for, amongst other things, securing a bribe from Thales for Jacob Zuma's protection in the arms deal. Thales country manager Alain Thetard allegedly signed or originated both the agreement that channeled money to Maharaj through his wife Zarina as well as the encrypted fax spelling out the payment for Zuma and the protections and advocacy those payments were for.
The issue is Zuma only avoided prosecution for corruption and racketeering because it was shown that there was political meddling in the prosecution – not because there was not a prima facie case for him to answer (his financial advisor went to prison for securing the bribe for his boss … you don't get more prima facie than that!)
The leaking of the evidence is undoubtedly linked to the conflict between Zuma and the faction of which Julius Malema is a part. In fact the Youth League has made it clear that it plans to raise issues associated with Zuma's sexual conduct as well as the fact that his (Zuma's) friends and family have benefited financially (and overwhelmingly) from his presidency. Some of Malema's key backers were insiders to the arms deal scandal and it would have been an easy matter for evidence against Mac and Zuma to emerge from some of those quarters.
At the very least the accusation (and reminder) that the Zuma presidency is deeply tainted by this history will hurt his re-election bid at Mangaung.
… while the ANC itches to get more fingers on the economy
Late last week it emerged that there are proposals to tax 'unbeneficiated' mineral exports and to force the South African fund management industry to own a specific amount of government and SOE bonds in 'draft of draft' reports from the ANC Economic Transformation Committee – that were due to be discussed by the ANC NEC this weekend.
Both Bloomberg and Reuters have got hold of these, but the 'final drafts' take a less prescriptive approach, according to committee chair and key ANC economic policy strategist (and deputy minister Economic Development) Enoch Godongwana.
The ANC aches to get its hands on the
IDC's Public Investment Corporation's investment power – especially as assets under management (mostly public sector pensions) topped the 1 trillion Rand mark in March.
The prescribed assets idea and strategies to force beneficiation – all in the service of the jobs drive – have been on the fringes of government thinking for years and are flirted with in much of the motivation that led to the NGP.
I don't think these proposals will ever be legislated in this form.
A pre-Mangaung policy conference (in May according to the Business Day and June according to Bloomberg/Reuters) will make recommendations but the decision will only be made in December 2012.
The 'nationalisation of mines' draft proposal was also expected to be delivered to the NEC this weekend. I haven't seen it or read any reports about it, but I expect a shift in the tax regime, a tightening up of the Charter and a plan to strengthen the African Mining Exploration and Finance Company (AEMFC) – which is the much vaunted "state owned mining company". Together these fall well short of the ANCYL nationalisation proposals, but still weaken the investment case for the industry as a whole.
(Note, that these ideas proposed by think-tanks within the ruling party are essentially grappling with ways to make the economy more supportive of the transformation project. The problem, though, is one of trust. Giving this ANC is led by the kind of people named in the first few paragraphs of this post, more control over central aspects of our lives feels stupid. I just don't trust them any more.)
… meanwhile
… Cabinet approved the publication of the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Act Amendment Bill that plans to fine companies up to 10% of revenues for 'fronting'- and allows for companies to lose points on one part of the balanced scorecard for failure to achieve targets on another.
This is the first major attempt to give B-BBEE serious teeth (outside of mining licensing where the legislative and regulatory teeth are already pretty sharp.)
My own feeling is that resources for 'deracialising' the SA economy are limited; cheating is a problem, but the fact that the process is too often indistinguishable from a bribe of the political class is the bigger failing the new amendments ignore.
There's my happy little corrective for an early Monday morning.
In case anyone was wondering if I had disappeared into the ether: I have been seriously busy and have had no time to post on the blog.
If you were paying extra attention, you may have noticed that a post reviewing the nationalisation of mines debate appeared and disappeared a few weeks ago.
My mistake – it was bespoke for a month, and I jumped the gun. I am now able to publish it and you will find it below.
Meanwhile I am into my second reading of An Inconvenient Youth – Julius Malema and the 'New" ANC by Fiona Forde. It is exceptionally good and I strongly recommend you go out and buy yourself a copy. I have begun a review which I will publish here during the course of the week.
But meanwhile, here is the month-old nationalisation update/review. My views haven't changed much since I wrote it … and it is good to get it on the record … even if it is a little turgid and written in an overly formal tone.
Nationalisation update/review
The nationalisation of mines debate in South Africa is, as predicted, reaching new heights of sound and fury. Yesterday it appeared that Cosatu was officially supporting the Youth League call. This is a situation fraught with danger although I do not change my assessment that the ANC is unlikely to decide on mine nationalisation along anything like the lines proposed by its youth wing.
Summary bullets
- Yesterday Cosatu economist Christopher Malikane argued that the ANC has accepted as fact that the mines would be nationalised and that it was only a question of "how" not "if".
- This does not imply significant new risk although the markets are likely to interpret it as such.
- In reality Cosatu is significantly divided on the call and current shifts in Cosatu policy have more to do with (important) internal conflicts.
- Cosatu does not have the final or even main say over ANC economic policy and its current flirtation with the Youth League is actually about frustration with not achieving its policy aims with the ANC.
- The ANC and its left wing allies have been consistent and steadfast in their criticism of the call and I outline the history both of the Youth League call and of the critique of the call in this report.
- The nationalisation call has consistently been deployed in political battles for power within the ANC and in government which both gives the call unrealistic political energy and makes the threat difficult to interpret or assess.
- The ANC has set its Economic Transformation Committee the task of assessing the call and making proposals. I expect clarity to emerge in November this year but a final decision will only be made at the centenary national conference in December next year.
- Cost, international agreement, the Bill of Rights and the constitution make it inconceivable that the ANC attempt to nationalise the mines.
- However I think the party and government will use the threat as a stick to get a better deal out of the mining houses.
- Between now and the final decision the "sound and fury" will keep the issue alive and the threat present.
Cosatu shifts towards the ANC Youth League
Yesterday Congress of South African trade Unions economist Professor Christopher Malikane was reported to have said at a South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry forum that the group charged with discussing the nationalisation of mines in the ANC had moved beyond the issue of whether the mines should be nationalised and is now purely considering modalities to achieve this aim. "Investors are looking for certainty around the issue of nationalisation, well this is the certainty they need," he said.
The ANC Youth League managed to place formally on the agenda of the ruling African National Congress (at the party's National General Council in September 2010) the proposal that government consider nationalising a majority share of the mining industry – for report back and a decision at the party's Mangaung elective centenary conference in December 2012.
The general noise gets louder
With the ANC and government leadership mired in controversy relating to poor service delivery, poor government performance and accusation of corruption – and the Zuma presidency as weak as it has ever been – the ANC Youth League and its supporters in government appear to have seized the initiative and are making all the running at a public level. Investors and other observers would be forgiven for thinking that the slogan "Economic Freedom in our lifetime!" and the calls to nationalise the mines, banks and the land (that last explicitly without compensation) were not government policy. I am of the view that owners of mining equity and other property in South Africa are starting to feel the heat.
My view
My view has been that the ANC is highly unlikely to decide to nationalise the mines – although uncertainty in this regard will persist right up until December 2012 (although some clarity is expected to emerge after the ANC committee examining this issue reports back some time in November this year).
I think that the party and government will attempt to use the populist surge to discipline the mining companies to fulfil their social and Black Economic Empowerment obligations under the Mining Charter (which arises out of the 2002 Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act).
Additionally government and the party are likely to use the opportunity to change the tax and royalty regime to extract more revenue from the sector – particularly with the imposition of a tax on windfall profits.
Finally I think it likely that new obligations will be placed on the mining companies – especially with regard to some form of obligatory contribution to the building and maintenance of transport and power infrastructure near where the mining operations are located.
Brief History of the nationalisation call
The ANC Youth League on nationalisation of mines
Soon after the current leadership of the ANC came to power at the landmark Polokwane conference in December 2007 the ANC Youth League elected Julius Malema as its president (in April 2008).
By the end of that year Julius Malema and the Youth League began proposing that the mining industry be nationalised. This was the essential elements of that proposal:
* an immediate suspension of the issuing of mineral rights and permits;
* the establishment of a state owned mining company;
* the nationalisation – with or without compensation – of fifty percent of all mining operations;
* that licenses only be issued in future on the basis of a 60 percent equity stake being held by the state owned company.
The Youth League drew authority from the historic Freedom Charter document. The document, drawn up in a national consultative process led by the African National Congress in 1955 and adopted at the Congress of the People in Kliptown says of the economy:
"The national wealth of our country, the heritage of South Africans, shall be restored to the people; the mineral wealth beneath the soil, the Banks and monopoly industry shall be transferred to the ownership of the people as a whole".
Criticism from the Left of the ANC Youth League call
The major critique of the ANC Youth League call was formulated by Jeremy Cronin, Deputy Minister of Transport and Deputy Secretary General of the South African Communist Party (and major ANC intellectual and ideologue).
It is my guess that Jeremy Cronin was deployed by the incumbent leadership of the ANC in the belief that a criticism of the nationalisation call articulated by leading communists would defuse the Youth Leagues claim of militancy and radicalism – and I therefore cover these arguments in detail here.
Cronin argued that the Freedom Charter passage supports the idea that "the people" get the full benefit of the economic resources "not that there be a narrow bureaucratic take-over by the state apparatus and the ruling party's deployees" (all Cronin quotes in italics in this section from SACP's Umsebenzi Online Volume 8, No. 20, 18 November 2009).
The state owning important aspects of the economy says nothing, for Cronin, about whose interests are being served:
"Hitler's Nazi Germany, Mussolini's fascist Italy, and Verwoerd's apartheid South Africa all had extensive state ownership of key sectors of the economy."
So for Cronin the 2002 Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act had already gone some way to fulfilling the Freedom Charter's objectives by explicitly stating:
"… that South Africa's mineral and petroleum resources belong to the nation and that the State is the custodian thereof …. In other words, it is the "nation" (with the state as custodian) and not the mining companies that have legal ownership of the mineral resources beneath our soil".
Cronin argues that the Youth Leagues proposal of nationalising
"mining houses in the current global and national recession might have the unintended consequence of simply bailing out indebted private capital, especially BEE mining interests".
And further that:
"Many of our gold mines in particular are increasingly depleted and unviable. Some reach costly depths of four kilometres below the surface. Recently the global gold price has bounced back, but it is telling that, unlike in the past, our gold output actually dropped by some 9% in the same period. Our gold mines are simply no longer able to respond dynamically to gold price rises."
Cronin (while making it clear he thinks "the people owe the mining houses absolutely nothing") points out that South Africa's Bill of Rights sanctions expropriation but requires compensation at a price agreed by both parties or determined by the courts.
The bottom-line for Cronin is that nationalisation would do nothing to further the "national democratic struggle". Rather it;
"would land the state with the burden of managing down many mining sectors in decline … burden the state with the responsibility for dealing with the massive (and historically ignored) cost of "externalities" – the grievous destruction that a century of robber-baron mining has inflicted on our environment. In the current conjuncture, nationalising the mining sector at this point would also probably unintentionally bail-out private capital, in a sector that is facing many challenges of sustainability. The problems of liquidity and indebtedness for BEE mining share-holders are particularly acute."
Opposition to and support of Youth League call
President Jacob Zuma, ANC Secretary General Gwede Mantashe (who is also SACP Chairman), and Minister of Mineral Resources Susan Shabangu have all explicitly rejected the ANC Youth League's call – with Shabangu having famously said that the mines would only be nationalised "over my dead body".
However despite this being the overwhelming position of the ANC and government, the Youth League scored a significant victory by having its proposal placed formally on the ANC's policy agenda – achieved at the National General Council meeting in September last year.
At that conference Tokyo Sexwale (Mvelapanda Resources and Human Settlements minister) and Bridget Radebe (Mmakau Mining, wife of minister of Justice and Constitutional Development Jeff Radebe and sister of Patrice Motsepe) both came out in support of the ANC Youth League's call – giving some weight to the now widespread allegation that the Youth League is operating with a hidden and funded agenda to have failing Black Economic Empowerment deals bailed out by government.
Arguing against the call were leading ANC intellectuals Joel Netshitenzhe, Jeremy Cronin and Trevor Manuel. However the ANC incumbent leadership failed to block the Youth League proposal and it is now formal policy of the ANC to investigate the matter and report back for a decision to be made at the centenary National Conference of the ANC which will be held at Mangaung (Bloem) in December 2012.
The ANC's Economic Transformation Committee
The committee tasked with formulating the ANC's position on the nationalisation of mines is the Economic Transformation Committee – which has the general brief of investigating the role of the state in economic development and is the natural forum in the ANC to develop a position on nationalisation.
There is not much in the public domain about the proceedings of the committee, but it is my information that Gwede Mantashe is overseeing the work of the committee which is formally headed by Enoch Godongwana (deputy minister of Economic Development and ANC NEC member).
The contributors thus far include those from the ANC Youth League, Joel Netshitenzhe, MZ Ngungunyane, Cosatu, Floyd Shivambu, Paul Jordaan and the National Union of Mineworkers. The full text of the initial contributions can be found in the last five issues of ANC's internal discussion publication "Umrabulo" (find those on the ANC website at http://www.anc.org.za/list.php?t=Umrabulo).
It is my understanding that those opposed to the nationalisation call – for the reasons that have already been summarised in this report – are attempting to craft a compromise that will allow everyone to save face while allowing government to wrestle a better deal out of the mining companies – as stated in the "My view" section at the start of this report.
It is my understanding that the committee will report back in November this year and I expect the markets to get an indication of how the debate will pan out then. However, it should be borne in mind that the formal conclusion of this debate will only be reached at Mangaung in December 2012 and the noise is likely to continue right up until the last minute.
Cosatu's shifting sands
The major change of external inputs into my assessment has been a struggle within the Congress of South African Trade Unions that has resulted in a shift away from the federation's original position which was closely aligned with the view of the SACP and the incumbent leadership of the ANC – as articulated by Jeremy Cronin above.
The last unambiguous statement from Cosatu on this general issue came in the form of a joint communiqué with the SACP on the 24th of June 2011- I quote it here in full:
"… periods of capitalist crisis are also typically characterized by various forms of right-wing demagogic populist mobilization acting on behalf of various capitalist strata in crisis, but often masked behind a pseudo-left rhetoric. We believe that the same phenomenon is apparent in SA, finding a potential mass base amongst tens of thousands of unemployed and alienated youth in particular. However, behind this populism are often well-resourced business-people and politicians seeking to plunder public resources. We resolved as the SACP and COSATU to close ranks and to expose the true agenda of these tendencies and their connections to corruption and predatory behaviour in the state."
However, at the Cosatu National Executive Committee meeting a week later a split appeared in Cosatu that has impacted on this debate.
The conflict is complicated but in a nutshell, it is between a faction led by powerful Cosatu Secretary General Zwelenzima Vavi and Irvin Jim of the National Union of Metal Workers (Numsa) of South Africa and a faction headed by leaders grouped around the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) under Frans Baleni. Broadly the NUM/Baleni faction is supportive of the SACP and the Zuma leadership of the ANC while the Vavi/Jim/Numsa axis has become frustrated with broken promises (concerning both corruption and economic policy) of the Zuma/ANC leadership and would generally seek a more radical socialist or workerist political solution than is being offered by the ANC.
The Vavi/Jim/Numsa faction has over the last month begun courting the ANC Youth League, and attempting to harness the energy coming from this sector for its own ends. This is highly opportunistic as Vavi and Numsa have consistently characterized the Youth League leadership as "right-wing demagogic populist" and the League's nationalisation call as fronting a corrupt BEE agenda looking to take a double bite out of resources available for transformation.
Rank opportunism or not, the crack in the Cosatu position is adding a new element to nationalisation debate. It is my understanding that the National Union of Mineworkers remains opposed to the ANC Youth League call, but the new element will undoubtedly add some confusion.
The point to remember about Cosatu – a point reiterated by the ANC and government leadership time and again – is that the federation represents a sectional interest. There are obvious reasons why some elements in Cosatu would want the mines nationalised – who wouldn't want a guaranteed job for life as a Greek style (up until recently) government employee?
It is to NUM's credit that its president Senzani Zokwana said in November last year that the Youth League was being reckless with the industry and that the League's call was inspired by rich Black Economic Empowerment recipients looking to get failing deals bailed out by the state and Frans Baleni a month ago reiterated: "It is not only the private sector that has invested (in mines), but the workers with their pension and provident funds have also invested. We should have maturity and the debate should not have political undertones."
It's the law!
A key motivator of my view has been that South Africa is bound both formally and informally to agreements – including in the Constitution – that make it impossible to nationalise the mines without full compensation. Nationalising 50 percent of the mines would cost in the region of $130bn. There is no conceivable advantage – and an almost endless downside – for the government to nationalise the mines. Therefore it is not going to happen – although the end result might look like a compromise and might entail the establishment of a state owned mining company, although one with a much smaller asset base and agenda than conceived in the Youth League's call.
Nothing material has changed that would allow me to change the view – although my confident smile has assumed a slightly brittle quality. Cosatu was never going to be the determining factor in this debate but the weakness of the ANC leadership – in particular the weakness of Jacob Zuma's presidency – means that I am no longer certain that the centre of the Ruling Alliance can hold.
From the start the nationalisation of mines call has, in part, been a stalking horse for leadership challenges within the ANC and government. I have argued elsewhere that the call has been central to Tokyo Sexwale's political ambitions and that he has covertly supported the Youth League in this regard for some time.
Now we have an element of Cosatu attempting to forge some form of alliance with the Youth League around the call clearly as part of a strategy to shift the leadership balance within the ANC.
The Youth League itself is using the call for its popular mobilization potential to help push its own candidates (particularly Fikile Mbalula – currently minister of sport) for higher office.
In this environment it would be foolhardy to be overconfident about the call. However it is my opinion that predicting the success of the Youth League call would be the same as predicting the imminent failure of the South African democratic project and state – a view I believe is too extreme and alarmist.
In many ways what is happening now is very much as predicted: the situation will be full of sound and fury right up until a decision is made at the end of 2012.
Two brief thoughts – on a rainy Cape Town Sunday:
Firstly – a by-product of Malema's (possible) retreat
I have a feeling that debates ranging from mine nationalisation, land distribution and continued white economic dominance in the South African economy have just been saved from the gangsters in the ANC Youth League who have been using these as a cover for looting.
It has been difficult not to lump every statement about ongoing race based inequality with the smokescreen slogans used by the ANC Youth League leadership – and many equally corrupt politicians.
The latest Commission of Employment Equity Annual Report says whites still occupy 73.1 percent of top management positions – and blacks 12.7, Indians 6.8 and coloureds 4.6? Yeah, well they would say that wouldn't they – after all, that is (one of) Jimmy Manyi's old outfits and he is the grandmaster of running racial interference for pillaging resources destined for development!
Willing-seller, willing buyer policy of land distribution responsible for only 5 percent of redistribution targets met? Yeah, well, guess who are trying to get themselves a portfolio of farms a la Zanu-PF?
Nationalise the mines? Yeah, so you can rescue your BEE backers and get a piece of the action yourself?
But that was last week.
Those issues are back on the agenda, but this time the discussion might be led by people genuinely looking to harness the country's resources for development and transformation – not looters, corrupt tenderpreneurs and "demagogic populists" disguising their true intentions.
If anyone thought we could go on with the levels of unemployment, inequality, poverty and racially skewed distribution of ownership and control of this economy I suspect they will find they have been very much mistaken.
One of the consequences of the retreat of the Malema agenda is that we will all have to deal with the issues we have, up until now, been able to dismiss or deflect because they were 'owned" and propagated by thugs.
Itumeleng Mahabane says it like it is
In a similar vein – and my favourite read of the week – was Itumeleng Mahabane's column in Friday's Business Day.
He deals with a variety of aspects of the country's debates about development and transformation.
In tones that have been tightly stripped – of anger, I suspect – Mahabane appeals for the debate to lose the "prejudicial invectives" and that participants should "desist from creating cardboard villains".
He makes 4 main points (actually he makes a whole lot more, and it is not impossible that I misinterpret him here – and he is certainly more subtle and nuanced than my summary below – so read the original column – the link again.)
Firstly he suggests (although in the form of a question, not the statement as I have it here) that we have to acknowledge the damage our Apartheid past has done our country, leaving "the inequity of our income distribution and the historic systematic destruction of black capability".
Secondly he hints that the state cannot assume more economic responsibility before we have fixed accountability – and thereby arrested corruption.
Thirdly he appeals for a sophistication of our views on the labour market – I think by suggesting that a degree of duality is crucial.
But, he warns:
I do not subscribe to the simplistic and questionable idea that the inability to hire and fire people is the core cause of structural unemployment. The balanced high growth would create demand for labour, regardless of labour rigidity.
Fourthly he asked us analysts why:
we casually, without considering the social implications, vilify workers and the working class, making them useful villains for complex economic challenges? We almost never give view to the body of evidence that shows that market rigidity and anticompetitive behaviour is a significant factor in deterring investment and output and that, in fact, it contributes to SA's excessive business and skilled-labour rents.
Those are important views – and an important corrective to aspects of our debate about development.
Sitting in a lobby between meetings with resource funds in Edinburgh – they want to know about the "nationalisation of mines" call and where I think that is going. I will try and give feedback about that as I go along (London tonight and USA next week.)
But meanwhile briefly: the Black Management Forum pull out from Business Unity South Africa?
"The Capitalists" have never been a unified block; but the split between what BMF and BUSA represent is important.
As I have said elsewhere, BMF (along with the Youth League and similar groups) want the goodies out of employment equity and black economic empowerment legislation and regulation for themselves. They do not care about the functionality of the parastatals or the state or legislation that encourages economic growth. They care about maximising their advantage from transformation – getting the top jobs in parastatals and getting access to control of the linked patronage networks.
BUSA represents productive business – that needs a functional state and needs working utilities. It needs the best management. Its interests are in direct opposition to the BMF's – which represents the most parasitic elements of the new elite and see the public sector (as well as their leveraged advantage in the private sector) as an opportunity for rent seeking and looting.
I am delighted that they have pulled out of BUSA. At some point in a struggle to persuade a group to see the bigger picture and take account of the broader set of interests (especially of the poor and unemployed) a line is crossed and a cartel morphs into a gang. Beyond that point the laws of engagement have changed.
If you could see the sneering disgust from a whole lot of fund mangers about cronyism and corruption in South Africa (that I am experiencing as I move around Europe and the UK), I think you would agree that it is past time for us to deal with those who have proven that all they are concerned about is looting and getting the best for themselves and their members.
Let them go into the wilderness and raid as the outlaws that they are.
Following a previous post: The Limits of Politics I want to argue that what the ANC is becoming is less a function of the failings of its leadership and more a consequence of the titanic forces of social change.
The past and present history of the African National Congress could be characterised (in shorthand) like this:
National Liberation Movement
The ANC arose out of the fact of the prolatarianisation of an African peasantry and the deepening national oppression of all black South Africans – only codified in Grand Apartheid in 1948 but stretching back much further.
What the ANC was was a natural expression of the changing pattern of the oppression of Africans (and other black South Africans) between 1912 and 1994. One way of understanding the shape, raison d'être, policies and leadership of the ANC during this period is to trace the history of the strategy and tactics of the pre-Apartheid and Apartheid states.
Each phase of ANC resistance to colonisation and apartheid – from the initial polite depositions of the early years, to the militancy in the 50's, the banning in 1960, the crushing of the organisation's internal structures, the launch of the 'armed struggle', the imprisonment and exile of its leadership, the playing catch-up after the 1976 explosion, the United Democratic Front as an internal wing to prevent Coloured and Indians being won over to a National Party strategy leading up to mass protests, negotiation – was mirrored in the changing structure of the society.
This is not to say the ANC was a perfect expression of all aspects of African resistance or that, in turn, such resistance was a perfect response to national oppression. The shape that all things assume is always a complicated expression of subjective and objective factors and this is true too for the African National Congress.
The forces that ended Apartheid
Of course the struggle for freedom of South African people and their organisations (and their allies around the world) is one way of understanding what brought about the end of Apartheid.
But another is to ask: what was Apartheid trying to control, for what end – and why did it fail?
Apartheid was ultimately a system of law, repression and inducements designed to deflect African's economic and political aspirations away from white owned and controlled South Africa – for the purpose of securing white economic power and security.
It ultimately failed because Africans "voted with their feet". The National Party was trying to legislate (and police) against the collective desires and actions of millions of people. But Africans would not have their aspirations diverted to the geographical or the political Bantustans. In the face of fines and brute force Africans kept coming back to the cities, the bright lights, the markets, the chance of work and the chance to do business.
To avoid complicating this further, let me say my own shorthand understanding of what was happening (and the timing of what was happening) is the South African and global economy were growing in ways that required an educated and settled workforce and this in turn raised for African South Africans the realistic possibility of being 'settled', 'educated' and, ultimately, of achieving a better life.
Apartheid and National Party rule constituted a barrier to the swelling aspiration of African South Africans – particularly for property, assets, homes and the right to work and live where they pleased.
The ending of Apartheid and National Party rule was the bursting of the dam.
1994 and beyond – the time of the flood
The African National Congress had always been forced to root itself in a marginalised African population and this meant it faced most forms of power in the society as the challenger and the outsider.
The ANC was able to ride the wave of rising African aspirations in the 70's and 80's – but there was no expectation that it meet those aspirations.
Everything changed of 1994.
The government's of Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki had a mandate and responsibility to use the winning of the 'political kingdom' to seek the economic one. What followed was a two-pronged approached to empowering the 'previously disadvantaged":
- take the state bureaucracy out of white hands and put it into black ones;
- encourage transformation of ownership and control of the private sector through employment equity laws and regulations and through the development of a black economic empowerment regime.
The process very quickly assumed its own momentum and the first stratum of individuals who were sucked into the maelstrom was the political class … the senior members of the ANC and government.
Once you have begun to use the state as a lever to gain economic power it is difficult to stop.
But by the time Thabo Mbeki's government attempted to formalise, control and broaden the process with the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Act of 2003 it was out of control – and engulfing large sections of the ruling party and the senior levels of the state bureaucracy.
… and the point?
The point is not to exonerate the ANC or government or individual leaders who have become tenderpreneurs or crony capitalists. It is not even to excuse government (particularly Thabo Mbeki's) for making specific errors in structuring the process … there were others paths that could have been taken that might have made a difference.
But the reason I suggest this vantage point or approach is because I think the hope that this process could ever have been calm or orderly is based on misunderstanding the deep, structural and historical nature of what is happening.
A flood of wealth and power is moving from the old order to the new and has blurred the boundaries between the public and private sector and is threatening to overwhelm government and the ruling party. Once the waters have achieved a new equilibrium it may be possible to re-establish a separation and rebuild the laws.
But it is going to be close.
Black Swans are loose upon the world:
The 2008 global debt crisis, Eyjafjallajökull (pronunciation fun here), Haiti and New Zealand Earthquake, China drought, Queensland floods the political crises in Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and the Japanese earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disasters seem to prove that it is not the mundane everyday that shapes the world but rather high impact and extremely rare events.
The moment has rather given credence to Nicholas Taleb's assertion in his book The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable that outlier probabilities are what shape our world and not the day-to-day numbers.
The point about black swan events is that they are highly unpredictable. Sitting there in January we did have a sense that we were in the midst of shocks and the consequences of shocks: we were finally recovering from the mortgage linked debt crises and appeared be entering a new and threatening terrain associated with sovereign debt worries in Europe – and beyond.
That wasn't all good, but it was part of the "known known" and we had a general sense of where to look for the things we didn't know (the known unknowns – for a useful breakdown of Donald Rumsfeld's discussion about certainty and unpredictability and Slavoj Žižek's caustic reply see here.)
Two months later the world is a markedly different place and I have found it useful to use the Japanese earthquake and linked disasters as well as the political instability in MENA (Middle East North Africa) to ask the big and scary questions about South Africa.
Usefully, Moeletsi Mbeki has written an article predicting South Africa's Tunisia Day for some time in about 2020.
Catch the Business Day article here and see my review of his book Architects of Poverty on which that Business Day article is extensively based here. (Afterthought note: the Business Day article is "extensively based" on Architects of Poverty not on my review.)
The long and the short of Mbeki's argument is that the primary resource intensive phase of Chinese growth will be concluded by 2020 (and therefore the commodity supercycle will come to an end) and the ANC government will run out of money to keep paying the social grants bribe to the poorest South Africans – which in turn will lead to revolt and rebellion.
He takes it a lot further – instead of growing our competitive advantage while the commodity bonanza is with us, the ANC has instituted another system of bribes to its own leaders and supporters (Black Economic Empowerment) which consists of getting wodges of the non-essential parts of existing business and turning those into consumption fuel. Thus fat cat politicians and their families act as representatives of the cheap-labour and primary-resource-addicted conglomerates in exchange for the mess of pottage and extreme ostentatious consumption.
And waiting in their future, according to Mbeki's argument, is a Tunisia style revolt.
So that's the layout of the argument.
I think it is timely and provocative and interesting, but I do not think it is meant – or should be taken seriously – as a real prediction. It is polemic that warns about the excesses the new elite is indulging in.
I am in the middle of a road show where I ask the big questions about South Africa's future stability.
I finish this evening and will then be in a position to summarise my own view; looking at the factors that lead towards instability and revolt and the factors that act to keep them at bay, asking how these balance in South Africa today.
The one thing the last few weeks have taught us is that the world is complex and interlinked in ways that make it extremely difficult to predict outcomes. With this proviso, I do not think we realistically can suggest that there are processes operative in our society that lead, in a linear fashion, to a Tunisia Day in the next ten years of our history … but it is a close call and I will examine some of that tonight and tomorrow morning.
The raging race debate forces me to think about how we become culpable.
I came across an obscene argument the other day. Perhaps you have seen something similar?
It went like this: the Japanese are reaping what they have sown; the earthquake, the tsunamis, the nuclear threat and the unseasonal blizzards in the north are a karmic balancing for the killing of whales and the popularity of whale meat amongst the Japanese citizenry.
Think about this.
But first control for the sentimentalised ranking of some mammals over others in the general lovability stakes.
So consider countries that kill and eat stinky old cows (instead of noble and graceful whales) in the mass-produced beef industry.
Would anyone suggest that tragedies involving suffering and death of the citizens in countries that eat a lot of McDonald's hamburgers (we could have spun this differently and made it KFC's horrifyingly produced raw material) are somehow the just desserts of those people who form part of the relevant consumer demographic?
The idea is outrageous and its reasoning as deeply flawed as it is repulsive.
There are extraordinary and moving photographs of stoic Japanese citizens being rescued or tested for radiation as they are being evacuated from near Fukushima. Here's one – and I hesitate to do this – and not only because it is not my property. The main reason is I do not want to be too manipulative:
I could have used this one, but I thought it might be pushing the bounds of good taste:
I do not want to go further down this path.
Only those whose lives revolve around sinister religious fairytales could believe any version of the idea that what has happened in Japan is some form of divine retribution.
I am more interested in the underlying fallacy that is much more common and certainly prevalent in our political discourse: collective guilt and the appropriateness of collective punishment – or at least collective responsibility.
Are whites the culpable beneficiaries of Apartheid? Do their children inherit this culpability and therefore the responsibility for redress? Are blacks (and, to a lesser degree) Coloureds and Indians victims of Apartheid? Are their children the inheritors of this disadvantage?
These issues are deeply unresolved in our political life – and, I believe, they are deeply unresolved in our law and in our minds.
I've been itching to get in my two cents worth about Jimmy Manyi's various comments concerning ethnic minorities (here for his original statement on YouTube, here for Trevor Manuel's robust criticism, here for the ANCYL's counter-attack on Manuel and defence of Manyi, here for ANC Secretary General Gwede Mantashe's implicit criticism of Manuel … "we won't get in the mud with him". Here's Cosatu joining the attack on Manyi and here's the SACP criticising Manyi but warning not to become part of the agenda of Afriforum and Solidarity – probably implying that Manuel has become part of that agenda.)
So much for curating the spat … now I want to say something about it.
I've written about Jimmy Manyi and the various endeavours by both the Black Management Forum and the ANC Youth League to gouge economic advantage out of transformation – catch that here and here for how that agenda was expressed as support for Eskom's Jacob Maroga.
Jimmy Manyi's comments about Coloured people must be understood in the context of the interests of the constituency he represents.
Jimmy Manyi is the quintessential spokesman of those who have got rich (or hope to get rich) through Black Economic Empowerment – including racially weighted tendering procedures – and Employment Equity regulations.
Those who define themselves as the beneficiaries of these processes are encouraged to express themselves in ever more racially chauvinistic and exclusive terms.
These Black Management Forum and the ANC Youth League leaders increasingly draw a distinction between themselves and any other ethnic group that also might have suffered under Apartheid i.e. they need to argue that they suffered the most, that everyone else was a relative beneficiary of the oppression of Africans.
The moral high ground of "non-racialism" was built and defended at great cost and effort by the ANC and its allies during the struggle against Apartheid. Apartheid planners and architects did everything they could to emphasise differences and spread fear and hatred betwixt and between as many ethnic identities as possible. This is one of the most important keys to understanding how and why that system worked and survived as long as it did.
Which is precisely why the ANC always understood its main ideological task as combating these attempts.
This is the reason Trever Manuel quotes that famous and moving last paragraph of Mandela's speech from the dock in 1964:
During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.
The Jimmy Manyi's and Julius Malema's are a post 1994 phenomenon not contemplated by the great men and women who sacrificed so much in the struggle against Aparthied.
They are parasites of transformation, emphasising and nurturing an exclusive African racial identity because it benefits their imperative to extract a rent out of the economy.
Has anything changed?
The guy in the middle is the ANC and his lying entreaties are addressed to Cosatu and the SACP while his real passion – and the furtive fumbling in the dark – are with business, global and domestic.
I commissioned that cartoon in 1999 and Cathy Quickfall did a better job than I could have hoped for: the Cosatu/SACP figure's naive and hurt innocence, still wanting to trust Mr ANC; business in a sharp suit, her disdainful look into the distance with just the busy hand behind her back revealing her urgent and furtive intent.
In the intervening 11 years I have used this same cartoon on several occasions (here's one) to ask whether the game has changed.
I believe this is still the game: the ANC's vacillation between a "left" agenda (consisting of a combination of growing state welfare, increasing effective taxation on the wealthy and expanded intervention into shaping the economy's trajectory) versus the promise (made more strongly in private) to global and local capital that it's rights to property and the retention of the large share of profits are inviolate.
All governments are faced with a similar dilemma, but it is a peculiarly South African phenomenon that the "left" agenda is married to the ruling party through the formal institution of the Ruling Alliance and that the political choices have, for clear historical and structural reasons, been cast in 'racial' as opposed to 'class' terms.
The cartoon as constructed worked perfectly well for the end of the Mandela era as well as the whole of the Mbeki era – even if, in typical soap opera fashion, the relationships became so complicated and entagled that the essential nature of the clandestine affair became difficult to percieve.
The analytical challenge for myself for 2011 will be to establish whether it holds true today.
There are indicators, including vaguely in the January the 8th statement and government murmurings about the New Growth Path, that hint that the grand French style affair might be coming to an end.
The rise of Jacob Zuma was, in part, the result of a tactical manoeuvre by Cosatu and the SACP to stop the deepening and elaboration of the affair between the ANC and some of the uglier strands of global capitalism.
The strategy seemed to fail when the Zuma administration appeared initially to be all about continuity of Mbeki's economic policies combined with replacing his BEE beneficiaries with the Nkandla Crew – the worst of both worlds.
I am starting to suspect that a combination of the strategic choices that have been forced on Zuma (by manoeuvrings to his right) and the absolute imperative that the ANC increase delivery to the poorest South Africans (who are the majority of voters) bring us closer to the breaking of the triangle that the cartoon represents than we have been since 1994.
I will continue to gnaw at the bones of this question in this blog and I welcome any contribution you might make to this or any other discussion that takes place here.
Those who know me would expect me to profess that I would rather eat broken glass than say anything sentimental and upbeat for the sake of Christmas cheer.
They would also know that I often fail: that a sort of "jolly hockey-sticks" optimism can sometimes creep into my disposition, that the studiously steely eyes often mist over at the occasional heart-warming story – usually about children, dogs, down trodden people pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps (whatever that means) and politicians being hoisted by their own petards or any other suitable handle.
A bit lame I know, but that's the way it is.
Anyway, nothing too mawkish this time – but still using every edge I can to generate interest.
Craig Tyson, my friend and the fine Editor of that excellent men's magazine GQ, has agreed to my publishing in these humble electronic pages something of mine he has only recently paid for and placed in the December issue of his paper and ink magazine – which also has an excellent website you can catch here.
As I did previously: here is the cover of the GQ. Click on the nose of the gorgeous Gisela Calitz and you will be whipped through to my article arguing that it is, ultimately, unsurprising that political risk increased this year.
Only joking. You can click anywhere on the picture – I momentarily liked the thought of lots of people carefully resting the cursor on her perfect nose and giving it a little click, but I am over it now.
Oh, and buy the magazine. It's a wonderful gift for the season of giving … oops.
I have been sickly and trying to pay the bills.
All my 'paid for' commentary on the NGC is done and I can finally get back to home ground where I feel more comfortable to make some wild accusations – and I will, finally, be more explicit in this post about who I think the bad guys are and who I think the less bad guys are.
At the outset, forgive me; this is long and requires a degree of effort to plough through. I believe your efforts will be rewarded in the end – but I would think that, wouldn't I?
The NGC, just like the world itself, becomes a cacophony, impossible to follow and impossible to interpret, without a guiding theory or a framing shape to look through.
The "theory" I am going to use here is that the NGC was the terrain on which two broad factions in the ruling alliance clashed. How you slice-and-dice a thing, conceptually, is always important for what you conclude, so much of what appears below is an attempt to unpick what and who those 'factions' consist of.
To think that what was happening at the NGC was "about" the nationalisation of mines call will lead to 'error' (you can see Lenin in my heritage when I use terms like that). Instead the NGC was "about" a more fundamental and complex power struggle.
The picture is additionally complicated when we consider that there were over 2000 delegates at the NGC (1500 from branches, 500 from the leagues/Cosatu/SACP/SANCO/PECs and 800 deployees/non-NEC ministers/DGs/premiers/CEO's of SOE's) and the interplay was vast and varied.
So instead of trying to cover everything I am going to look through the prism of an alleged power struggle between two broad factions or groups of interest. This will ultimately be another attempt to "follow the money".
Here then is the prism through which I believe it is most useful to look:
- The 'nationalisation of mines' (NOM) call was always a "stalking horse". The term "stalking horse" refers originally to "a horse behind which a hunter hides while stalking game" (WordNet) and is defined in Wikipedia as "a person who tests a concept with someone or mounts a challenge against them on behalf of an anonymous third-party … if the idea proves viable and/or popular, the anonymous figure can then declare their interest and advance the concept with little risk of failure … if the concept fails, the anonymous party will not be tainted by association and can either drop the idea completely or bide their time and wait until a better moment for launching an attack." Oh yes, I love the language.
- The 'nationalisation of mines' call (hereafter called NOM because in fact, it has less do with policy and more to do with power) is best understood as the political platform of a particular alliance of groups and individuals and interests that has as its objective the winning to power in the commanding heights of the ANC and the South African State. The NOM is therefore something more (and less) than a policy proposal. It is a contingent strategy for winning power – and getting the ANC to nationalise the mines would be a desirable side-affect for some of the participants.
- The first part of the NOM is the Youth League's own specific ambitions, which have most obviously been expressed as a campaign to elevate Fikile Mbalula to the position of Secretary General of the ANC – the position currently occupied by Gwede Mantashe. Mantashe is despised by the League for a number of reasons, but mainly because he is part of those who believe the ANC Youth League is part of an ambitious rent seeking agenda. The League considers itself to be a "king maker" in ANC electoral processes and the organisation has energy and mobility and time to move quickly around the country to influence decisions at a branch and provincial level – a feature it demonstrated successfully at and in the lead-up to Polokwane.
- The second part of the NOM are those mining tycoons who want their BEE deals bailed out by the taxpayer. Who could have failed to notice the unified voices of those gleaming billionaire siblings Patrice Motsepe and Bridget Radebe as well as Minister of Housing Tokyo Sexwale backing the NOM in the lead-up to the NGC or at the conference itself?
- The third part of the NOM is the election campaign of Tokyo Sexwale to succeed Jacob Zuma. Has he specifically funded and backed the ANC Youth League so that it can be deployed in its traditional role of "king-maker" on his behalf – or because he wants his BEE deals bailed out … or both? It is impossible to prove – either that he has passed money/business/tenders the way of the League or why he might have done so – but that he has done so – with the intention of becoming president – is clearly the view of most of "the left" in the tripartite alliance.
- The clearest unifying principle behind the NOM and the most distinct characteristics of its participants is that they are first in the queue to gouge a rent out of the ANC's economic transformation agenda. The nationalisation of mines call is tailor-made for the broader agenda of the NOM: there are real material benefits for the backers, it allows the policy bereft Youth League to appear radical and pro-poor – and anti-white capitalist – to its potential supporters; it forces the current top leadership under Zuma (for the sake of investment and economic stability) to deploy itself to defend against something that would naturally appeal to the rank-and- file's populist instincts.
- So who is the NOM challenging? Essentially "the incumbents", which at one level just means Jacob Zuma, but at another level means everyone who has assumed a leadership role in government, party and the Tripartite Alliance as a consequence of Jacob Zuma's elevation as well as the ideas and policies that have come to be crafted by that incumbent group.
- The "incumbents" should also be conceived of as including all those tenderprenuers, Nkandla hangers-on and Zuma family members whose fortunes are linked to the fortunes of the incumbent leadership.
- Do the members of the NOM even know who they are or what they are part of? Mostly they do – because there is an increasingly bitter conflict, for example, between the ANC Youth League and the SACP. When powerful factions clash, they strengthen themselves, make themselves more defined; they force anyone and any issue into the framework of their clash. We saw this in the Cold War, but more recently and specific to the groups here, we saw this in the struggle to stop Mbeki and elevate Zuma. eventually everyone knew whether they were "for" or "against" the motion. Attempts to stay sane, principled and above the fray are inevitably MIA in this kind of overblown factional dispute.
Given that framework, what actually happened?
NOM preparation
Firstly, the NOM did extensive (but insufficient) spade work around the policy that fronts their agenda. Julius Malema and Floyd Shivambu have been on an extended road trip, selling the idea for over a year. They have written for newspapers and addressed conferences. Malema threatened to withdraw Youth League support from any leader who did not support the call. The Youth League attended all provincial preparation conferences for the NGC and was successful in getting its view represented in every delegation from every part of the country. There are extensive reports that members were instructed to infiltrate ANC branches and emerge later as NGC delegates. The style associated with "winning" this view at various conferences was a combination of exclusive focus on the issue and heckling, booing and threatening any opposition – in the now time-honoured traditions of the League and its members.
What the financial backers of the NOM and members of the broader NOM agenda were doing in the lead-up to the NGC should not be underestimated. Individual backers of the NOM have extremely extensive resources. Such wealth and power gives individuals the ability to reach people and process far from themselves – and snap them like a twig.
Incumbent preparation
It is difficult to say how much work the incumbents did. I have made the assumption that securing the Tripartite Alliance was key to the incumbents preparing for the onslaught they knew was coming at the NGC. In this context the brokering of the ending of the public sector strike and the carefully worded apology from Cosatu to the Zuma/government for the language workers and their leaders had used during the strike was, in part, an attempt to establish the ground for a united front against the NOM agenda at the NGC. Comprises and certain concession were probably made to "the left" – but I will discuss this in the conclusion.
The NGC opening – political and organisational reports
Jacob Zuma's Political Report and Gwede Mantashe's organisational report were interesting for a number of important reasons but what is relevant for this post is both reports were correctly interpreted as a significant shot across the bows of the NOM. We can all delight in the fact that Winnie Mandela had to physically comfort the distraught Julius Malema after the dressing down he received during Jacob Zuma's opening Political Report and take to heart her now immortal words " … every parent is allowed to talk to their children … Every organisation is like a parent."
Commission 5 victory and then plenary defeat
The sighs of relief 'the incumbents' might have breathed after the NOM's early humiliation were soon replaced by anxiety when the NOM decided to put all of its eggs in one basket (this is one time that cliché is justified) by sending 45 of the Youth League's 66 delegates to the Wednesday economic transformation commission. It appears that all supporters of the NOM including Tokyo Sexwale and several other BEE mining tycoons flooded the commission to ensure a particular outcome. The best article in the public domain I have seen about the commission is by Moipone Malefane and Caiphus Kgosana in The Sunday Times of September 26 – catch it here.
Joel Netshitezhe , Lesetja Kganyago (DG in the Treasury),Trevor Manuel, Enoch Godongwana (Deputy Minister Public Enterprises) and old stalwart on this issue, Jeremy Cronin, were amongst the key ANC intellectual and economic thinkers who tried to hold the line at the meeting. Their appeal for thoughtfulness and care around an issue likely to costs government hundreds of billions of Rand were reportedly overwhelmed with bullying, heckling and unthinking repetition of the demand: adopt the call, as we have defined it, as policy!
Without having seen the exact statement that emerged from this commission it is clear that the Youth League (and everyone else present) was under the impression that they had scored a clear victory and the inner cabal reportedly headed off to the Hilton Hotel to celebrate victory in the style to which they had become accustomed.
The ANC Youth League's (and the NOM's) celebration was premature. The next day at the plenary session of the NGC Minister Geoff Radebe (husband of Patrice Motsepe's sister, Bridget, and someone who had expressed support for the basic premise of NOM earlier) delivered a watered down version of the results of Commission 5 – and the ANC Youth League leaders exploded, ultimately sealing their fate by appearing to storm the stage in an aggressive manner.
Ultimately, through the support of delegates from across the alliance at the plenary, a watered down version of Commission 5 carried – essentially calling for thorough cross-country comparison and analysis of nationalisation as part of government's ability to influence economic growth patterns in favour of the poor and unemployed. This study was mandated to report back to the 2012 Bloemfontein/Mangaung 100th centenary elective National Conference.
In the end it was not 'the incumbents' that were overwhelmed by the "shock and awe" campaign of the NOM. In the end it was the NOM that lost the skirmish – they overestimated the efficacy of their own preparation and they underestimated the coherency of the opposition – as well as degree of anger that is now widespread towards the ANC YL and its leaders.
The paucity of facts in the public domain does not relieve us of the obligation to think about what may be going on and develop a view as to the potential risks involved in any situation. Wile E Coyote might have said 'what we don't know can't hurt us', as he wandered over another cliff, but in the real world what we don't know can sometimes be deeply threatening. So the explanations I have given here are my best attempts to muster an explanation for as much of the story as possible. I am sure that at some point in the future some of the guesswork and necessary assumptions might prove misguided – but that is life in the threat analysis business.
Three final points;
Firstly, it is okay to delight in the set-back of a particularly voracious self-enrichment agenda at the ANC NGC. But it is important not forget that the conference left unscathed similar agendas in many other places in ANC and affiliated ranks, including in the Zuma family itself.
Secondly, the defeat of the NOM is a tactical, tangential issue. Like the Governator, they'll be back.
Finally, the victory was bought at the expense of some kind of compromise with "the left". I expect the upcoming Cabinet review of a New Growth Path to be more sympathetic to a host of issues traditionally seen as part of an SACP or Cosatu platform (including Rand policy, inflation targeting, downward pressure on interest rates, nationalisation of the SARB, tax on short-term capital flows, industrial policy, National Health Insurance and the establishment of a state-owned bank.) The consensus within "the incumbents" is inexorably moving towards a rejection of some of the basic tenants of the Growth, Employment and Redistribution Macro-Economic Policy as defined by Mbeki and Manuel.
Our future is full of as yet undefined state intervention. I wouldn't feel so bad about this if I didn't agree with Cosatu that this state, in this place and time, is rapidly becoming a predator.