The New South Africa - the_new_government

Has South Africa betrayed Madiba's legacy?

noreply@blogspirit.com () — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:24:57 +0200

By Barry Moody

Nelson Mandela celebrates his 90th birthday on Friday as a widely revered statesman, but South Africa faces a host of problems that challenge the dream he embodies of a harmonious rainbow nation.

Mandela, imprisoned for 27 years but forgiving of his former captors, is hailed as a shining example of the power of forgiveness and reconciliation.

His smile and sense of humour have made him a treasured international icon. He is rare among African leaders in agreeing to give up power quickly, after only one term subesequent to the end of apartheid.

He transcends races and opinions in South Africa itself, acclaimed by all sides of society including the whites whose rule he fought to overthrow.
Yet his birthday comes at a time of crisis in the country under the rule of his successor, Thabo Mbeki, widely attacked for failures in fighting HIV and Aids, poverty, a major power crisis, violent crime and the disaster in neighbouring Zimbabwe.

Describing how Mbeki was hailed when he became president, Financial Mail editor Barney Mthombothi wrote this week: "Needless to say, their prince has turned out to be a frog."

He added: "Mandela united the country. Mbeki has divided it...It's sad to see the current lot trashing his legacy."

Some analysts say the idea that Mandela represented a golden age of hope now betrayed is false.

"The first time I heard a claim from a journalist that Mandela's dream had been dashed was the beginning of 1995. It is part of a knee jerk reaction to this kind of situation," said Professor Steven Friedman of Rhodes University.

But there is no doubt the euphoria of Mandela's rule has evaporated.

Many South Africans, especially the more educated, are leaving for other countries and others are talking about it.

A leaked research report commissioned by the government shows that 36 percent of the population are no longer committed to the country and 29 percent are considering emigration, the weekly Mail & Guardian newspaper reported.

South Africa suffers some of the worst violent crime outside a war zone, especially in the Gauteng region around Johannesburg. The country has the world's highest HIV caseload.

Mbeki is accused by trade unions and the leftwingers in his own ruling African National Congress (ANC) of business-friendly policies that have delayed bringing the fruits of black rule to the legions of poor. Unemployment stands at around 23 percent.

Growth in Africa's biggest economy is endangered by a power crisis that has robbed vital platinum and gold mines of electricity and threatens to stoke already high inflation, in turn fuelling unrest among trade unions and in poor townships.

Mbeki also stands accused of ineffective mediation in Zimbabwe, where a worsening crisis has flooded neighbouring countries, especially South Africa, with millions of refugees.

Those refugees were among the targets of a shocking outburst of xenophobic violence in May. Scenes of foreigners burned alive reminded many of the brutal violence at the end of apartheid.

Recent moves by the ANC have raised even more concern among commentators, with party leaders accused of a dangerous assault on the independence of the judiciary to protect new leader Jacob Zuma against corruption charges that could derail his expected succession to Mbeki in 2009.

But some analysts say the cries of doom are overblown.

Friedman said that while Mandela played a "brilliant and superb" role in reconciling the races, "He wasn't the Messiah and he isn't the Messiah."

Susan Booysen, a political analyst at Wits, SA's top university, said: "The kind of dream we all cherished in the Mandela era had an expire-by date."

Analysts say Mandela's place in history is due to the way in which his inspirational leadership and power of reconciliation averted civil war at the end of apartheid and united the races in a new democracy against great odds.

But he was seen to have only a vague grasp of economic issues and left detailed policy to Mbeki, his deputy president, who effectively ran government even then.

"Mbeki's great strength and weakness is that he is a policy wonk who is obsessed with all this stuff and pays absolutely no attention to people. Mandela was obsessed with people and ignored the policy," Friedman said.

"As a team they were pretty good but when one has to rely on any one of them it became a bit of a problem."

And despite the many problems, optimism lingers.

"There is still, certainly a very strong grassroots expectation that this government stands a chance to make things better. It is a continuously adapting dream, not the end of the dream for a long time yet," said Booysen.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mandela's friend and fellow Nobel peace laureate, said in a newspaper birthday tribute: "We are richly blessed with the one who has made us believe that a rainbow nation is a viable proposition."

From : http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=nw20080716162644249C425001

New South Africa - CNN takes notice

noreply@blogspirit.com () — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 19:20:00 +0200

New South Africa - CNN takes notice

The mainstream media have been alerted to the human tragedy unfolding in South Africa under ANC rule.

The scale of it is incredible.
Affirmative action gone mad in the form of BEE (Black Economic Empowerment) has resulted in the collapse of the state owned electricity supplier, ESKOM, and is contributing to the inefficiency of the Police, Health Care, as well as the housing, water & sewage and job creation sectors.

Government inability to create jobs and an efficient police force has led to massive loss of life through extremely violent crime -- South Africa's homicide rate is 55/100,000 i.e. 10 times higher than the USA. This translates to a 9/11 every 3 months, or a Sharpeville every single day.

Duma Gqubule, an economist who has studied BEE, says that in the 10 years since BEE's creation, GDP per capita has dropped to the levels of 30 years ago and unemployment has doubled to eight million.

BEE reaches much further than the affirmative action programmes in other countries. It sets quotas for black ownership of companies across all economic sectors in South Africa.

Black ownership of 25% - 50% is enforced upon medium and large companies. Similar laws apply for the following: Management (50.1%), Employment equity (40% - 70%), Preferential Procurement (50%).

Businesses have been closed down already for not complying. Not only in ESKOM, but also in health care, police and education departments, whites are barred from advancement, regardless of qualifications or experience.

Even the president's brother, the businessman Moeletsi Mbeki, says the current brand of BEE is really a political rather than an economic strategy that is enriching an elite of black businessmen close to the government.

Instead of using this type of policy, it has been suggested by critics that a policy of qualification equality should be used. This would allow businesses to focus on employing the person with the highest qualifications, the most experience and the best recommendations. To allow previously disadvantaged individuals to achieve these qualifications and experience, critics of BEE say that the government should place more emphasis on secondary and tertiary education, as well as subsidise companies wishing to employ entry level applicants.

The government's reckless implementation of the affirmative-action policy is forcing many white people to leave the country, creating a skills shortage crisis, Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi said on Thursday.

- and this is illustrated by the ESKOM collapse and rampant slaughter of law-abiding citizens.

A New Wave Of Brain Drain For South Africa

noreply@blogspirit.com () — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 19:30:00 +0200

A New Wave Of Brain Drain For South Africa

Whilst in the middle of a skills shortage crisis, the South African government is unmoved by a new wave of skilled citizens seeking a better future elsewhere.

Do you Agree South Africa is Losing its Way

noreply@blogspirit.com () — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 19:52:10 +0100

According to the recent interview with desmond Tutu that South Africa is in danger of losing its moral direction. The retired Anglican archbishop opposes ex-Vice President Jacob Zuma becoming president due to his "moral failings".

Do you agree with Archbishop Tutu ? Has all respect been lost? What are your opinions? Send us your views and experiences.

Read Full Article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/5384310.stm

64% more SA cops killed under Xhosa rule than during the last eleven years under apartheid

noreply@blogspirit.com () — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 18:55:00 +0100

Posted on: http://groups.msn.com/crimebustersofsouthafrica

PRETORIA, South Africa. Nov 2007 -- Hundreds of policemen are being murdered in armed violence under Xhosa-tribal rule in SA from 1994 -- the death-toll among SA police indeed is 64% higher than in the eleven years preceding SA's political transition. This finding was made by the South African Institute of Race Relations.

"Between 1983 and 1993, about 1,152 policemen were murdered. Between 1995 and 2005, a staggering 1,894 policemen were murdered," the Institute said. The death-rates among SA police during 2006 and 2007 have gone up even higher. This is an increase of 64 percent," said Kerwin Lebone, the Institute's researcher who compiled the statistics.

"If there were any South Africans that had to date failed to grasp the seriousness of criminal attacks on SA these figures should shock them out of their complacency".

Lebone warned the government "not to surrender its citizens rightful monopoly on the use of force for self defence to criminals." "The continued brazen attacks on state institutions and personnel responsible for the safety of South African residents and citizens amounts to an attack on the state itself. "Public trust and confidence in the ability of the state to protect them will be eroded if the state cannot be seen to defend itself," he said.

The danger existed that the public 'would lose faith in the legitimacy of state institutions' and begin to 'increasingly take the law into its own hands for their own survival', he warned. - Sapa

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?art_id=nw20071105143147450C569258

The New South African President

noreply@blogspirit.com () — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 17:54:14 +0100

Commentary
The New South African President
Tony Leon and Marian L. Tupy 12.18.07, 6:00 AM ET

The African National Congress, South Africa's ruling party, meets this week to select its new leader. Reports indicate that Jacob Zuma, the left-leaning former deputy president of South Africa who was fired in 2005 after allegations of corruption, has garnered enough support to unseat current president Thabo Mbeki in the ANC's top job.

Zuma will likely become South Africa's next president when the general election is called in 2009. Although South Africa is politically and economically freer than it was under apartheid, serious challenges remain. Zuma will need to try new ways of addressing them.

According to the United Nations, HIV/AIDS afflicts 19% of South Africans between the ages of 15 and 49, and many doubt the government's commitment to fighting it. Thabo Mbeki, the current president, refuses to talk about the disease, and his firing of popular and capable Deputy Health Minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge suggests that he values personal loyalty over professional ability. That also explains why Jackie Selebi, who failed to make a dent in South Africa's murder rate--which remains nine times higher than that of the United States--and who is under indictment for links with organized crime, remains South Africa's police commissioner. The country needs a president who does not mock the citizens' concern over crime.

The parliamentary oversight of the ever-stronger executive is woefully inadequate. The electoral system of proportional representation allows political parties, rather than constituencies, to select their candidates for parliament. That arrangement has allowed the ANC to fill the government benches with scores of toadies who tolerate ministerial mismanagement and corruption out of fear for their jobs.

At the same time, many members of the public refrained from criticizing the Mbeki government because they worried about being accused of lack of patriotism or even racism. On the upside, the contest for the ANC presidency has led to the first genuine country-wide debate about the pros and cons of individual candidates.

Corruption has billowed under Mbeki. Part of the reason for that increase is the conflict between the content of South Africa's much-admired constitution and the realities of the ANC's self-styled "national democratic revolution." The constitution contains plenty of checks and balances.

In contrast, the ANC's politicies saw a Putin-style placement of the party's supporters into all the watchdog roles and positions of oversight. The ANC has mimicked the same approach in the private sector, pressuring the country's large businesses to appoint its supporters into senior positions. The hegemonic impulses of the ruling party have cost South Africa much in terms of economic efficiency and erosion of the rule of law. Whether the ethically compromised Zuma can set that to rights remains uncertain.

If South Africa is to succeed as a multi-racial society, the new president will have to repudiate the racially divisive rhetoric that marked much of the Mbeki presidency. With some one million white South Africans leaving the country over the last decade, Nelson Mandela's "rainbow nation" is becoming less colorful. The large but inefficient public sector is beset by skills shortages and frequent protests among the intended recipients of public services--the vast majority of whom are black--which show that Mbeki's race-based electioneering was not only unethical but self-defeating.

The new president should have the courage to adopt economic reforms that result in faster economic growth. South Africa's money-guzzling, public-private corporations, like South African Airways, which gets billions of rands in annual subsidies, ought to be privatized.

The new president should also liberalize the labor market. In spite of a growing economy, rigid labor laws keep unemployment stubbornly high, at 26%. Worryingly, the number of people in South Africa who live in absolute poverty doubled between 1994 and 2007. Unfortunately, Zuma may be too beholden to the Congress of South African Trade Unions, which was very supportive of his candidacy, to do what is necessary.

Abroad, South African foreign policy is increasingly puzzling and at variance with the ANC's stated commitment to the promotion of human rights. Mbeki has done much to foster peace in Africa, but his international moralizing is at odds with the policies pursued by his foreign-policy mandarins. The ANC cozies up to dictators from Burma and Cuba to Libya and Zimbabwe while at the same time criticizing the American and Israeli foreign policies. For the ANC to criticize American foreign-policy mistakes while shielding Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe from international scorn is hypocritical and then some.

South Africa remains Africa's dominant economy and its largest democracy. In spite of the mistakes of Mr. Mbeki's presidency, the country's potential remains great. To unleash it, the new president must do a better job than the last.

Tony Leon is the former leader of the Democratic Alliance and the former leader of South Africa's parliamentary opposition. He is a fellow at the Institute of Politics, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Marian L. Tupy is a policy analyst at the Cato Institute's Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity and author of the study Troubling Signs for South African Democracy Under the ANC.

South Africa's divided ANC starts leadership vote

noreply@blogspirit.com () — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 11:56:15 +0100

Once I think the New South Africa has fallen to a new low, the ANC springs into action. I no longer am surprised at the stupidity of the ANC and its members. How can anyone in their right mind think Zuma can run a country? The ANC and their members have once again shown their ignorance. If this werent actually happening, no one would believe it.

So in lew of Mr. Zumas victory I will dedicate an entire categegory to the moron.

Zuma expected to win leadership of South Africa's ANC

South Africa's widening divide

noreply@blogspirit.com () — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 16:58:26 +0100

By Orla Guerin
BBC News, Johannesburg

The trappings of luxury are enjoyed by the black business elite

Brian Mdluli is living the new South African dream.

At 33, he is a CEO in the marketing world, with a lifestyle to match - his and her BMWs parked in the driveway, a swimming pool and a boat.

Mr Mdluli is part of South Africa's small but rapidly growing black middle class, the so-called "Black Diamonds".

They are reaping the benefits of steady economic growth under President Thabo Mbeki and the government's policy of black economic empowerment.

For the first time in its history, South Africa's governing African National Congress (ANC) is facing deep divisions over its choice of leader - a reflection of the state of the country itself, where the gap between rich and poor is more evident than ever.

Over a quick game of pool in his private den, Mr Mdluli gives his verdict on the state of the nation.

"I always compare South Africa to a 14 year old," he says.

The people we voted for are living in mansions, while we are living in shacks

Jacqueline Rosetta

"You're not a kid but you're not an adult either. This is the time in any kid's life or in any young adult's life where leadership is very important."

The current ANC leadership has delivered opportunities for people like Mr Mdluli but many others have been left behind.

The growth presided over by Mr Mbeki has been jobless growth - cold comfort to the millions dreaming of better days.

And the old division between black and white has given way to a painful new divide: the yawning gap between rich and poor black people.

Poverty trap

Mr Mdluli knows both sides of the story, as he stays close to his roots in the township of Soweto.

From his spacious home in one of Johannesburg's leafy suburbs it is a half-hour drive back to the narrow streets and modest homes of his birthplace.

Many poor South Africans still live in tin shacks

Life is improving for many here too but Mr Mdluli takes us on a tour of the squatter camps.

Here families live in tin shacks, bordered by refuse, in the company of rats.

Across the country the numbers living in severe poverty are believed to have doubled in a decade.

A recent study by South Africa's Institute for Race Relations found that the numbers living on less than $1 a day rose from 1.9m in 1996 to 4.2m in 2005.

Jacqueline Rosetta is one of those trapped in poverty.

An articulate lone parent, aged 40, she has been looking for a job for five years, and waiting for a house for twice as long.

Ms Rosetta takes us to see her home, a one-roomed tin shack in a rough neighbourhood of Soweto.

Her government grant of 200 rand ($30) per month does not even cover the rent.

The shack is neat and tidy, but it is cramped and her two teenage children cannot live with her here, because there is no room.

There is no heating, no running water, no fridge and no cooker - just a hotplate in the corner.

Rain comes in through the roof.

Crime fears

Ms Rosetta says her life has got worse since the ANC came to power, not better.

"I'm asking for how long I am going to go through this struggle," she says.

"Because the people that we voted for are living in mansions, while we are living in shacks. They are driving smart cars, while we can't afford to drive."

The government doesn't look after the poor, it just looks after itself

Jacqueline Rosetta

Ms Rosetta was held up at gunpoint close to her home.

Like many South Africans she worries about the high crime rate. There are an average of 50 murders a day.

"It's not safe at all, even in the same street that I'm living in. There's no safe place," she says.

Ms Rosetta says she dare not venture out after 1900, for fear of being robbed, shot or raped.

Back in 1994, Nelson Mandela gave South Africans a vision of the future.

The Mbeki years have brought progress - including the construction of 2.4m homes.

But now that Mr Mbeki is trying to cling to power by seeking a third term as ANC leader, he stands accused of tarnishing Mr Mandela's legacy.

"This is not what we dreamed of," said Xolela Mangcu, a political commentator.

"We all dreamed that we would be part of this project of national reconciliation and development but we've just turned into yet another one of these oligarchic African countries, with a leader who doesn't want to leave office."

Champion

If as expected, Mr Mbeki is replaced by former Deputy President Jacob Zuma, how much will change for South Africans like Ms Rosetta?

Mr Zuma and Mr Mbeki have been engaged in a bitter contest

Mr Zuma is seen as a champion of the poor and he has got strong support from the left-wing: the South African Communist Party and the powerful Trade Union Confederation, Cosatu.

They want to see more attention paid to the needs of the poor and the working class.

But Mr Zuma has been reassuring the business community at home and abroad that he intends to keep the economy on its current course.

So Ms Rosetta is not expecting her circumstances to improve.

"The poor are getting poorer and the rich are getting richer," she says.

"The government doesn't look after the poor. It just looks after itself."

Johannesburg Photos

noreply@blogspirit.com () — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 18:03:31 +0100

These batch of pictures came from another Bloggers site focusing on ho Johannesburg has become such a pit Visit them -- you won't be dissappointed.

The new gallaries are:

Three Castles Building, Marshall Street
http://dojthreecastles.blogspot.com/

A Drive Down Anderson Street
http://dojanderson.blogspot.com/

The Cartlon Hotel
http://dojcarltonhotel.blogspot.com/

The View from the Gauteng Legislature
http://dojgauleg.blogspot.com

A Drive Down Jeppe Street
http://dojjeppestreet.blogspot.com/

The Johannesburg Bus Depot
http://dojbusdepot.blogspot.com

The Jewish Museum, The Great Synagogue and OK Bazaars
http://dojjewish.blogspot.com

Joubert Park – Then and Now
http://dojjouubertpark.blogspot.com/

A Drive Down Marshall Street
http://dojmarshallstreet.blogspot.com

Oppenheimer Park: The Vanishing Springbuck
http://dojoppenheimerpark.blogspot.com/

A Drive Down Troye Street
http://dojtroyestreet.blogspot.com

Death of Johannesburg – Eloff Street and Others
http://dojeloffstreet.blogspot.com

Von Wielligh Street and Others
http://dojvonwielligh.blogspot.com/

South African Police.....Corruption or Incompetence?

noreply@blogspirit.com () — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 16:03:14 +0200

An inside job at the South African Home Affairs office?...caught on camera! also the ensuing bungle by the South African Police force....