By Olu Akanmu
It has been
an unprecedented season of labour strikes in South Africa in the last few
months. Starting from a sit-in strike in an obscure Marikana platinum mine in
which the South African state and its police acted reminiscent of the apartheid
period and murdered 34 miners, strikes have spread to whole of the mining
sector, the public service and the transport sectors. Strikes have spread in a
virtual Mexican wave style, a new wave picking up as another one ends. No one would have imagined in 1994 when
Mandela took over as South Africa’s first democratic President, with a black
majority government, that a post -apartheid South African police under a black
government, will shoot down 34 black miners under whatever guise. It was like a
black South African government murders its own.
The strikes are a big embarrassment to Jacob Zuma and the African
National Congress (ANC) who came to power after one hundred years of struggles
with a purpose to liberate the black South African majority from economic
deprivation and poverty. The ANC was not just a political movement. It was an
economic movement, a rallying point for the black working class and their
unions such as the National Union of Miners (NUM) and the Congress of South
African Trade Unions (COSATU).
An
interesting feature of the strike movement especially the Marikana strike was
that the workers took actions outside the union structure, setting up rival
unions because they no longer trusted that union leaders in the NUM will
genuinely support their economic struggle for better working conditions. South African workers and its people seem to
be losing faith in the ANC and the unions that have led them in the apartheid
struggle. While would they not? They have grown to see union leaders and the
ANC leaders co-opted by the white capitalist establishment as board members and
Chairmen of Corporations under the guise of black empowerment. Many of the old ANC leaders have become
billionaires, some with obscene wealth while the living conditions of the
larger number of black South Africans have not changed fundamentally from
apartheid days. Yes, there has emerged a new black middle class, who have been
coopted into management, riding BMWs and Mercedes in Sandton. Soweto, Alexandria and Gugulethu however remain
what they are, townships of black people with a huge youth populations that
cannot get jobs. Shanties are still in place, people living in corrugated iron
sheet houses as they lived under apartheid despite the fact that black brothers
are now running the state house in Pretoria. Unemployment in South Africa stands at 24 %
with more than half of the children of South Africa according to a 2012 UNICEF
report living in poverty. Despite South
Africa being classified as a middle income country, more than 50% of the
population continue to live below the poverty line. Eighteen years after apartheid, South Africa
has become the country with highest income inequality in the world with gini
index of 64% according to a Euromonitor report in June this year. 35% of the population
lives below $2.5 per day. With such social misery indices, it is not surprising
that South Africa has one of the highest crime and homicides rates in the
world. Nearly twenty years after
apartheid, this could not have been the dream of Nelson Mandela.
South
African economy must grow faster to create jobs for its people. The problem however is that its internal
social contradictions now manifested in waves of labour strikes, is a major
disincentive for investment. It is estimated that the recent strikes have
shaved off 8% of projected GDP growth of 2.5% in 2012. Foreigners have also sold more than $1.3
billion of South African equities since the beginning of the labour strikes. South
African labour laws, a gain of the anti-apartheid movement is extremely liberal
and progressive, protecting workers right and unionization in the work place.
Business however considers it too rigid and inflexible and a disincentive to
investment. Given that capital has a choice of where to locate, a country with
rigid and inflexible labour laws is unlikely to attract capital and investment
needed for economic growth. South Africa has therefore lost out significantly
to more competitive Asian economies like Vietnam for manufacturing investment. South Africa needs to institute an urgent
regime of labour market reforms. It however does not have the social consensus
needed to do such given its internal social contradictions.
The widening
inequality within South Africa has also fuelled calls for nationalization of
its biggest corporations especially in the mining sector. Such extreme Hugo
Chavez type of economic thought is driven by deep frustrations with South
Africa’s social reforms and its slow pace of wealth redistribution. Jacob Zuma
and the ANC leadership have outrightly ruled out nationalization of South
African mining industry as an economic option. The ANC position is right as
such moves will drive away much needed investment while stifling free market
and its investment incentives that make business to run profitably. Zimbabwe,
just across the border of South Africa has shown that expropriation of private
capital and nationalization can only send an emerging economy down in a
tailspin of economic abyss. The ANC leadership position is however also driven
by self-interest. Many of its key leaders are now co-owners and Chairmen of the
big mining corporations. ANC leaders
therefore have a moral issue on their hand even when their economic thoughts
may be right given that they now preside over mining businesses whose working
conditions are not really different from the same they fought in the apartheid
days.
If
nationalization is not an option and wealth would have to be redistributed to
ease social tension, progressive taxation of the wealthy, their profits and
their consumption would have to be squarely on the table. It is economically and morally justified.
Those who have been privileged as legacy white big business owners and their
new black empowerment co-owners must give out more to fund investment in
education, health and infrastructure that will liberate more South Africans out
of poverty. In addition there should be
more social philanthropy especially from black business. Those who were
prisoners just twenty years ago, who are now billionaires today because of the
privilege of black empowerment have a strong moral duty and obligation to give,
to donate to charity, black scholarship and entrepreneurship. The black
billionaires must give not because it is compelled by law but that they
recognize that they were privileged as a generation to be at the right place,
at the right time, to be those who could take advantage of black empowerment
opportunities in the early years of post-apartheid South Africa. .
A more
fundamental issue however for South Africa in the resolution of its social
contradictions is the need to reform its politics. South Africa is like a near
one party state with the ANC by its legacy of anti-apartheid struggle virtually
dominating its political structures. Yes, other parties exist and are protected
by law even among the black population; they however do not command significant
following to put the ANC on its toes. No
political party can command the credibility of the ANC among black South
Africans. The ANC is therefore
comfortable that it will always win elections at least in the foreseeable
future. This credibility legacy of the ANC while being well deserved might have
become the greatest problem of South African democracy. ANC leaders seem to be
able to get away with anything including the perceived sell-out of its poor
black consistency for shares in white capitalist corporations and their use of
the instrument of the state, (which they now control) to protect their business
interests. South Africa needs a credible
black alternative movement that will compete with the ANC, put pressure on it
and force it to reform. There have been allegations of corruption in government
typical of sister African states where the people despite a democratic system
seem to be unable to vote out governments that do not perform or get their
hands soiled in immoral and unethical issues. Without a credible black
alternative movement, there are real dangers that a complacent ANC could lead
South Africa the way of the rest of Africa’s weak democracies.
In the
interim pending the reform of the ANC and an alternate credible black political
party, critical political institutions in South Africa will need to be
strengthened to moderate the dominating influence of the ANC. This includes the
institution of free press and a strong and independent judiciary. The South
African press has done a most credible job to expose corruption in government.
It has provided an open space for public discourse outside the political party
structures. And interestingly, the unions and organized civil society movement
such as the churches will also be important in providing alternate critical and
credible voices to the ANC. South Africa
needs a new generation of Desmond Tutus who will put the current ANC leaders on
their toes, speaking the truth to power and challenging the moral conscience of
ANC leaders. And if labour strikes are
needed to wake up the black political leaders of South Africa, perhaps there
should be more until South Africa negotiates a new social consensus that does
not leave majority of its people behind.
Olu Akanmu is an
executive in the telecommunications industry. He was previously Managing
Director/ CEO Retail and Consumer Banking at BankPHB. He publishes blog on
Strategy and Public Policy on http://olusfile.blogspot.com
