Numsa Media Monitor A daily compilation of local, national and international articles dealing with

labour related issues

Monday 7 November 2016

South African workers

Other unions up in arms over Amplats/AMCU settlement

Bizcommunity.com, 3 Nov 2016

It seems the wage agreement reached between Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) and the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) has ruffled the feathers of the other two major labour players, which claim the settlement is unlawful.

According to the Union Association of South Africa (UASA) and the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), the agreement flies in the face of the rights that both enjoy as equal partners in terms of the employment relations agreement (ERA) which binds Amplats, UASA, NUM and AMCU. “After a full month’s negotiations between organised labour and management, during which the services of two CCMA facilitators were engaged, Anglo Platinum senior management signed an unlawful agreement with AMCU, completely excluding UASA and NUM,” a statement said.

The two excluded unions have jointly placed Anglo Platinum on terms to comply with the ERA, failing which urgent court action shall follow. According to UASA’s legal department, the concluded agreement between AMCU and Amplats is void and NUM and UASA should be permitted to continue with the annual wage/salary negotiations with Amplats in compliance with ERA.

“It is clear to UASA that both Amplats and AMCU have flouted the rule of law by the devious conclusion of this unlawful agreement. Orderly industrial relations are paramount to the economic stability of our economy. It is simply untenable that a blue-chip multinational corporation like Anglo Platinum has seen fit to ignore its duty to bargain with UASA and NUM,” the statement said.

http://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/608/153241.html

NUM labor union seeks to have platinum deal declared illegal

Chris Bishop, Platts Metals Daily, 3 Nov 2016

The National Union of Mineworkers said Thursday it has filed papers in an attempt to have the recent South African platinum pay deal between thousands of miners and the biggest platinum producer in the world, Angloplats, declared illegal.

The case will begin on Monday at the Labour Court in Johannesburg.

The dominant union in the platinum talks, the Associated Mineworkers and Construction Union, Monday signed a pay deal, of 7% a year for three years until the end of June 2019. with Angloplats, Lonmin and Implats.

The deal was also extended to minority union UASA and the second largest union in negotiations, the NUM, but the latter refused to sign it, saying the deal did not carry enough benefits.

"We will be going to court on Monday seeking an interdict to get this pay deal declared illegal and set aside. We believe there was no legal cause to extend the deal to us and we want it interdicted," NUM Deputy General Secretary William Mabapa said. "Our lawyers are prepared to fight this issue all the way through the courts."

The NUM will try to interdict the deal with Angloplats only -- the only company where it hangs on to union recognition after years of losing members to AMCU in the platinum industry.

This case, which many in the industry believes has no precedent, could throw a spanner in the works as the South African platinum industry settles after narrowly avoiding a strike. Both the AMCU and NUM declared disputes with the employers in September.

It couldn't come at a worse time for South African mining. Amendments to the mining laws are crawling through Parliament leading to uncertainty among investors.

To make matters worse, this week the man steering those amendments, mining minister Mosebenzi Zwane, was named in a Public Protector's report on so called state capture -- that outlines the influence of private business over state funds. He is likely to have to give evidence before a full judicial inquiry in a couple of months' time.

http://www.platts.com/latest-news/metals/johannesburg/south-african-num-labor-union-seeks-to-have-platinum-26586303

NUM welcomes court ruling on the killing of its officials

JacarandaFM/ANA 5 Nov 2016

The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) welcomes life imprisonment meted to a man convicted of the murder of two of its officials, the union said on Friday.

The man was sentenced at the North West High Court sitting in Mogwase outside Rustenburg on Friday for the murder of NUM shop stewards Nobongile Norah Madolo and Percy Letanang.

The two were killed in Marikana near Rustenburg in 2013.

Percy Letanang, 45, was shot at least seven times when he arrived home in Segwaelane on November 2, 2013, he died five days later in hospital.

He was employed at Lonmin’s Eastern Platinum Mine and took a voluntary severance package (VSP) after the NUM was de-recognised at Lonmin.

NUM lost its majority status in the platinum belt to the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu).

At the time Mxhasi Sithethi, NUM Rustenburg Region co-ordinator said most NUM members took their VSP’s fearing for their safety at the mine.

Madolo, 44, was killed outside her home in Marikana on August 12, 2013.

“As the NUM, we hope this heartless monster will rot in jail for the rest of his life. The sentence handed down today has vindicated the NUM as it has always said that its members are harassed, intimidated and killed for merely associating themselves with the union,” said spokesperson Livhuwani Mammburu in reacting to the sentence.

“This sentence will send a very strong and vivid message to all those who find it difficult to tolerate the democratic right of workers who choose to belong to the union of their choice.”

https://www.jacarandafm.com/news-sport/news/num-welcomes-court-ruling-killing-its-officials/

South Africa: Code of Good Practice to Tackle Violent Wage Strikes

All Africa.com, 3 Nov 2018

Cape Town — A new draft Code of Good Practice has been drawn up to deal with the length and violent nature of protests during industrial action, Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Wednesday.

Fielding questions in the National Assembly on Wednesday, the Deputy President said the draft document is part of deliberations that are underway at the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) between social partners, including business, labour and government.

He had been asked what measures government is considering to reduce the protracted and violent nature of strikes, as well as the progress that has been made in reaching agreement among the Nedlac social partners.

"The deliberations on labour stability are nearing completion. A meeting of the Committee of Principals on 22 October found common ground on most of the areas negotiated in the task team.

"These include a draft Code of Good Practice on Collective Bargaining, Industrial Action and Picketing. The code aims to strengthen and promote orderly collective bargaining and provide clear guidelines to both employers and employees during industrial action. It includes a code on picketing, which, among other things, provides generic picketing rules," Deputy President Ramaphosa said.

The drafting of the Code of Good Practice comes after President Jacob Zuma called for social partners to deliberate on the violent nature and duration of the strikes, extensive deliberations have been underway in NEDLAC on measures to improve labour market stability and collective bargaining.

The Code of Good Practice was drafted as part of work that has been undertaken by a technical task team that reports to a Committee of Principals, which Deputy President Ramaphosa chairs. The Deputy President said a separate technical task team has been discussing wage inequality and the introduction of a national minimum wage.

He said social partners are also close to finalising an accord in which all parties represented in Nedlac commit themselves to promote the constitutional rights of all, collective bargaining and peaceful industrial action.

"The draft accord contains a declaration that violence, intimidation and damage to property is unacceptable during industrial action.

"It also deals with issues such as the conduct of the South African Police Service and private security during industrial action, the role of the CCMA [Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration] in facilitation and mediation and the training of negotiators through the Department of Higher Education and Training and the SETAs," he said.

The Deputy President said, meanwhile, that Nedlac social partners have also had extensive talks on proposed amendments to the Labour Relations Act.

He said the aim of the talks was to strengthen the dispute resolution process and give effect to some of the measures contained in the Code of Good Practice.

"The work done by the technical task team to date is remarkable. It has tackled some of the most challenging and contentious issues in our labour market environment and developed sustainable solutions that have the support of all social partners.

"The Committee of Principals intends to meet before the end of the month to resolve the few areas on which agreement has not yet been reached," the Deputy President said.

http://allafrica.com/stories/201611030617.html

Artisan training school fails to spend budget

Sizwe Sama Yende, City Press, 6 Nov 2016

Johannesburg - A parastatal tasked with training unskilled and unemployed youngsters in Mpumalanga to be artisans has failed to spend R52 million of its budget, despite requesting more funds.

The Mpumalanga Regional Training Trust (MRTT) – a section 21 company in the Mpumalanga department of education – established the Mshiniwami Artisan Training Academy in conjunction with a private company, Hydra Arc, last year to produce and place 1 000 boilermakers and welders in the job market each year.

Hydra Arc specialises in pressure vessel and piping fabrication, construction, refinery maintenance, tooling and equipment in the petrochemical, mining, power-generation and construction industries.

Hydra Arc was awarded a five-year tender to produce 5 000 artisans by 2019, but that may not happen, despite the MRTT having requested an additional R128 million in the 2015/16 financial year – but it failed to spend a big chunk of the money.

This means 40% of the artisan development budget could not be spent, despite the province’s youth unemployment rate, according to Stats SA, standing at 41%.

Only 329 students completed their institutional training in the last financial year, according to the department of education’s annual report.

This is way below the target of producing 1 000 artisans a year.

DA legislature member Jane Sithole said the MRTT should use every opportunity to upskill the youth to boost the province’s economic growth.

“Unemployment in Mpumalanga is rife, especially among the youth. The MRTT is unable to fulfill its mandate.

"It cannot be acceptable that money meant to uplift young people out of poverty by providing them with much-needed skills is not spent for this purpose,” Sithole said.

Mpumalanga education spokesperson Jasper Zwane, however, said the artisan programme was on track and would meet its 2019 target.

“Every effort is being made to achieve the target of training 5 000 artisans by the end of 2019,” Zwane said.

“The training programme is continuing and taking place in different phases. Recruitments are being made as such funding allocated for this financial year will be used for the intended purpose.

"As an occupational trade, artisans were identified as a scarce and critical skill needed to grow the economy of the province,” he added.

The underexpenditure compounds other issues, including complaints from Mshiniwami students last year, which almost led to the institution being shut down. The training programme stopped for about three weeks due to students’ protests in August.

The students complained that they were not allocated the Chemical Industries Education & Training Authority registration numbers, and also alleged that modules for the boilermakers were designed by the moderator of the welding course, that staff were not qualified and that when students were taken to Sasol for experiential training, they were forced to do jobs they were not trained for.

Zwane said the department was engaging with the students and other stakeholders to resolve the students’ complaints.

http://www.fin24.com/Economy/artisan-training-school-fails-to-spend-budget-20161106-2

Fedusa supports extension of youth ETI

Independent Media, 5 November 2016

Johannesburg - The Federation of Unions of South Africa (Fedusa) has welcomed the recommendation by government to extend the youth employment tax incentive (ETI) scheme by another two-year period from December 31.

“Fedusa believes that the two-year extension period will afford all social partners the opportunity to critically analyse the outcome and uptake of the scheme which encourages youth employment by both small and large businesses,” Fedusa general secretary Dennis George said.

Fedusa's engagement on the proposed extension of the legislation by way of the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) process would be further enhanced when additional submissions were presented by George to Parliament's finance standing committee on Wednesday November 9.

“The federation's position on the ETI has been mitigated by the presentation of empirical evidence satisfying all concerns that no displacement of older workers is evident. Moreover, Fedusa's support of the regulation of temporary employment services, commonly referred to as labour brokers, was further mitigated as the evidence presented outlined that labour brokers did not benefit extensively from the ETI,” said George.

However, Fedusa remained fully opposed to the proposed introduction of a R20 million cap on the incentive, which would by intention only act as an inhibitor and limit the opportunity to absorb and expand the skills base and competitiveness of both employees and businesses, he said.

While the National Treasury showed that ETI claims in 2013/14 amounted to 134,923 jobs and 686,402 jobs in 2014/15, Fedusa believed that this upward trend should be encouraged and not stifled.

These positive developments and policy interventions could only contribute towards the collective actions championed by the social partners, demonstrating total commitment to the promises made during the international investor roadshow and the 2016 South Africa tomorrow investor conference in New York.

Fedusa believed the ETI offered some solution to addressing the structural problems of unemployment while attempting to increase the levels of employability and experience of both unemployed youth and graduates who failed to secure formal employment. Constructive interventions and collaboration that paved the way for more sound and stable economic and labour relations should be encouraged to ensure rapid and inclusive economic development.

Fedusa remained committed to working together with all social partners in the spirit of deepened collaboration to find workable solutions that would lead to economic prosperity, poverty eradication, and equality, George said.

http://www.iol.co.za/business/news/fedusa-supports-extension-of-youth-eti-2087120

Alliance

SACP mulls divorce

Hlengiwe Nhlabathi, City Press, 6 Nov 2016

Endemic corruption, visible divisions in national leadership, “parasitic looting”, manipulation of internal elections and the ANC’s insistence on keeping a “deeply flawed” President Jacob Zuma as its public face are among the factors spurring a renewed push for the SA Communist Party (SACP) to go it alone in coming elections.

An SACP discussion document spells out the urgent need to identify itself outside of the ANC.

The document reveals that the governing party’s alliance partner is highly concerned with how “dangerously sick” large parts of ANC have become.

Titled More Than Ever the SACP Has a Leadership Duty in the NDR (National Democratic Revolution), the paper is one of a series prepared for discussion ahead of the party’s July elective congress next year. Besides the scheduled stepping aside of long-serving general-secretary Blade Nzimande and other veterans, the party is expected to make what could be a historic decision to contest elections independently.

Such a decision would see the SACP field its own candidates in municipal by-elections and then submit its own list to the Independent Electoral Commission in the 2019 general elections. Until now, SACP members have run on an ANC ticket at all levels.

The pressure to contest elections has been building since the early 2000s, but the leadership has been able to keep a lid on it by setting up committees and deferring discussions. It died down after the SACP – together with other ANC alliance structures – engineered the ascendancy of Zuma, whom the communists expected to champion leftist policies. But now the party feels betrayed by Zuma and bemoans the rise in factional groupings such as the so-called Premier League on his watch.

The debate on going it alone was resuscitated at the consultative congress in July, where it resolved to reassign the State Power Commission.

Guptarisation of the state

The hard-hitting paper is scathing about the symptomatic problems facing the ANC, including what it has termed the “Guptarisation of the state”, which refers to parasitic behaviour by individuals leeching on government departments and entities. It also hits out at the “endemic corruption and corporate capture of much of the ANC’s institutional machinery”.

“While there were some good comrades, reckless and parasitic forces have managed to colonise large parts of the organisation,” reads the document.

It says the ability of the ANC “to embark on serious self-correction is uncertain” and the ANC’s national conference next December may therefore not be able to provide impetus for change.

Flawed personality cult

Zuma is also directly blamed for the “sobering” outcome of the August 3 local elections in which the ANC lost control of the Tshwane, Johannesburg and Nelson Mandela Bay metros, and saw support plummet to 54%.

“The decision to run the ANC election campaign around the person of ... Zuma also clearly cost the ANC many votes. Opinion polls suggest ... Zuma has a national approval rating in the lower 20% – far lower than that of the ANC itself,” it reads.

“Where else in the world would a political party contesting a competitive election choose to build its campaign around a deeply flawed personality cult?” asks the SACP paper.

The party decries “the systematic, money-driven factionalism” from the top to lower structures.

“This results in brazen manipulation of internal elections, membership lists and deployments,” it says.

The move to weigh future options was further reignited by the “wilful bypassing” of ANC and Cabinet-mandated positions by individuals in government during Zuma’s tenure.

These include the SAA crisis, digital migration, nuclear energy and Mineral Resources Minister Mosebenzi Zwane’s “task team” on banks that had blacklisted the Gupta family.

It also speaks of a “climate of extreme recklessness” in many parastatals, in government and in the ANC. The paper says there has been little willingness or capacity to deal with corruption, factionalism, growing social distance from our mass base and the “sins of incumbency”. The party says that while the flourishing of parasitic behaviour dates back to the Mbeki era, it is “seriously more advanced and dangerous”.

No God-given right to lead

The party is aware that it will not necessarily govern in 2019, but that it could use the electoral space to mobilise support.

Obtaining a small share of the vote could help it to position itself to have some sort of “deal maker” impact in governance, much like the Economic Freedom Fighters.

Another option to be discussed by structures is for SACP members to contest ward elections with a view to forming post-election council coalitions. But given the level of tensions and assassinations seen during candidate nomination processes, achieving such a “gentleman’s agreement” with the ANC would not be easy.

Yet another option touted in the paper is that members stick to the current dual membership, which will result in members participating in ANC structures as full members.

But it flags a danger: the party losing its identity, being co-opted and treated as “second-class” ANC members.

“We need to understand that the ANC does not have some God-given right to eternally lead the NDR.

“We need to recognise that at different times during its generally proud and heroic existence, the ANC has been largely missing in action,” says the SACP.

http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/sacp-mulls-divorce-20161105

Cosatu warns ANC to avoid collision course over member treatment

Stephen Grootes, EWN, 4 Nov 2016

Cosatu's Sizwe Pamla said they find it impossible to try and raise their concerns with the African National Congress.

JOHANNESBURG – The Congress of South African Union (Cosatu) says if the African National Congress (ANC) doesn’t start to work properly for workers and change course it will be on a collision course with the federation.

Yesterday, the trade union federation said the ruling party was showing arrogance and disdain for workers and that it understood the frustration of its members and National Education Health and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu)’s position in calling on President Jacob Zuma to resign.

Cosatu’s Sizwe Pamla says the ANC cannot continue to treat its members with disdain.

“From where we’re at the moment considering the anger from our affiliates, the anger from our members and the level of frustration, the members are very much clear now.”

Labour analyst Gavin Brown says this is clearly a reflection of real frustration.

“Clearly Cosatu must be getting pressure from its members and its branches and from its affiliates, expressing their distaste of what’s going on and questioning the continuation of the alliance.”

Cosatu president Sdumo Dlamini is currently seen as supporting Zuma, while it’s claimed other unions may join Nehawu in calling on him to resign.

UNDERSTANDS NEHAWU’S POSITION

Cosatu also says it understands Nehawu’s position after the union said this week it was calling on Zuma to resign for the good of the ANC and of the country. Nehawu was the first formation within the alliance to call for Zuma to go.

Pamla said they find it impossible to try and raise their concerns with the ANC.

“We meet a wall of arrogance and a level of indifference that is shocking for us as a reliable ally of the ANC, so we are saying the ANC should tread carefully.”

And he said they do understand why Nehawu has called on President Zuma to resign.

“We actually understood Nehawu’s position because we’ve been engaging at all levels with the ANC to try and find a solution to some of their organisational problems but this goes beyond that.”

Cosatu also said that people in government and President Zuma should stop going to court all the time when it's clear they’re going to lose.

In a statement, Cosatu said: “It supports the sentiments and suggestions that all those who are wasting taxpayers’ money in frivolous legal challenges, should be made to pay it back from their own pockets.

The trade union federation also took a swipe at legal advisers it claims give “unsound legal advice.”

“They should be removed from the state payroll and public representatives who want to defend themselves from allegations of corruption and impropriety should pay from their own pockets.”

http://ewn.co.za/2016/11/04/cosatu-says-anc-cant-continue-to-treat-its-members-with-disdain

Eskom

Eskom’s deal with Gupta-owned Tegeta corrupt: Mantashe

Sithandiwe Velaphi, Sunday Independent, 6 November 2016

Johannesburg - ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe has lashed out at Eskom, saying it does not take a rocket scientist to see that its transaction deal with the Gupta-owned Tegeta Exploration and Resources was “corrupt”.

“If you have read the public protector's report you would see that the trip by Minister (of Mineral Resources) Mosebenzi Zwane to Switzerland to negotiate that the Optimum Colliery be given to Tegeta was corrupt and it is the ANC that should say so,” Mantashe told ANC members at Ncumisa Khondlo Community Hall in Peddie, near Grahamstown, on Friday.

He was in the area to deliver a memorial lecture on the life and times of former ANC president Oliver Reginald Tambo.

Mantashe said he had no problem with the Gupta family doing business with people in South Africa “but there's a problem when the wealth of our country is not benefiting black South Africans”.

“Also, I have a problem when the very same Gupta family dictates on what the state should be doing because by doing so they are abusing a power that is not theirs,” he said.

“Our wealth must benefit black South Africans if Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) is in accordance with its formulation. You cannot take our wealth to Guptas and call that BEE. That is incorrect,” Mantashe said.

He said it was also “worrying” that the organs of state were being used to fight political battles.

“That should worry us all, or else we will turn into a Mafia state. When there is corruption, the ANC must say so because if we fail to do that, we are going to lose the support of our people,” said Mantashe.

Eskom chief executive Brian Molefe denied any corruption in the Eskom-Tegeta deal during a press conference this week. He accused former public protector Thuli Madonsela of not giving him a chance to explain himself.

Mantashe said he supported Madonsela’s recommendations of a judicial commission of inquiry into the State of Capture report. “Such a commission will go into the bottom of the problems we are faced with,” said Mantashe.

http://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/eskoms-deal-with-gupta-owned-tegeta-corrupt-mantashe-2087275

Tegeta set to cut ties with Eskom

Tshepo Mongoai, SABC, 4 November 2016

The Gupta-owned Tegeta coal mining company has notified Eskom that it intends terminating its coal supply contracts with the power utility.

Eskom says Tegeta did not supply reasons.

In the recently released State of Capture Report, former Public Protector Thuli Madonsela found that dealings between Eskom and Tegeta were highly irregular.

Eskom board member responsible for Ethics, Pat Naidoo, says: “All I have done this morning is to give fact. It is to be noted that Tegeta didn’t respond to the RSP of the supply of coal. It advised Eskom of its intensions to reach a mutual agreement to terminate all the agreements…I don’t know why.”

Earlier, Naidoo said that there was nothing unusual about the R60-million pre-payment to Tegeta for coal supply.

Eskom says it has paid over R38-billion in recent years to date in pre-payments to other mining companies.

The report indicates that Tegeta may have used the money to buy its stake in Optimal Coal mine from Glencore.

Eskom has rejected suggestions that it favoured Tegeta.

http://www.sabc.co.za/news/a/b92518804ed8baccad92eff5a9947ffb/Tegeta-set-to-cut-ties-with-Eskom--20161104

How to hijack a coal mine

Stephan Hofstatter, Sunday Times, 6 November 2016

huli Madonsela's state capture report lifts the lid on how Eskom helped the Guptas hijack Optimum Coal Mine from Glencore, fund the deal through suspect payments and sweetheart coal contracts - and then flip its coal terminal for a tidy R2-billion profit.

The report provides the first detailed account of:

• Strong-arm negotiations behind the scenes that Madonsela said forced Glencore to sell Optimum so that the Guptas could benefit;

• Eskom CEO Brian Molefe’s close contact with the Guptas and other Tegeta directors at critical stages of the deal;

• How the deal was funded, including by an adviser to Mineral Resources Minister Mosebenzi Zwane; and

• A secret late-night bail-out from Eskom to Tegeta of R660-million in coal pre-payments.

Madonsela dates the root of the rot to an Eskom board meeting held in Cape Town on April 23 2015, when negotiations over a long-standing dispute with Glencore’s Optimum mine were discussed.

Eskom board faults report but mum on cell calls

The board “consisted predominately of individuals with direct and indirect business and personal relations” with Duduzane, the Gupta family and “their related associates”, including businessman Salim Essa.

Among those who attended the Cape Town meeting were board members Mark Pamensky, Nazia Carrim and Viroshini Naidoo.

The report points out that all three have “identified conflicts of interest”.

Pamensky was associated with a company called ORE that is 64% owned by Atul Gupta; Shiva Uranium, in which Tegeta has a 20% stake; and Yellow Star Trading 1099, which Essa is a director of.

Naidoo is married to businessman Kuben Moodley, who was special adviser to Zwane when the Optimum deal was being negotiated. Moodley is also the sole director of a company called Albatime — one of the entities the report says funded the deal.

Carrim, who has since resigned, is related by marriage to Essa.

At the meeting it was resolved that negotiations with Optimum Coal Mine should be referred to Molefe — who was then acting CEO — before being tabled for board approval, which Madonsela “found peculiar”.

Molefe promptly cancelled a co-operation agreement with Optimum and levied a R2.1-billion fine for contractual non-performance. This forced the company into business rescue.

“The only party who probably stood to benefit from [Optimum] being financially

distressed and in business rescue would be a prospective suitor,” Madonsela said.

“In this case the prospective suitor was Tegeta.”

Running for cover from Thuli findings

Madonsela found Molefe’s role in these events worrying given the evidence of his relationship “with the Gupta family as well as the directors of Tegeta”.

The evidence included records showing dozens of phone calls between Molefe and Ajay Gupta, who described him as a close friend who regularly visited the Gupta family home in Saxonwold.

Another crucial meeting was held at Eskom’s offices on November 24 2015. Called to discuss selling Optimum to the Guptas, it was attended by business rescue practitioner Piers Marsden and Tegeta director Nazeem Howa.

At this meeting, Eskom made it clear it wouldn’t allow the sale to go ahead if it was only for Optimum Coal Mine rather than Optimum Coal Holdings, which owned two mines and an export terminal in Richards Bay, even though Marsden only wanted to sell Optimum mine.

Once a sale agreement was signed in December, Tegeta managed to secure lucrative coal contracts from Eskom, the report said.

Last month Tegeta sold its Richards Bay terminal. Ajay Gupta told Madonsela the company stood to make a profit of R2-billion from the deal.

Madonsela found it puzzling that Eskom allowed Tegeta to sell the terminal when it had previously insisted Optimum’s entities could not be sold separately.

“It appears the conduct of Eskom was solely for the benefit of Tegeta,” she

concluded. This may contravene the Public Finance Management Act “in that they acted solely for the benefit of one company”.

Another major issue Madonsela had with the deal was how it was funded.

A business account at the Bank of Baroda received 32 deposits for Tegeta totalling R2.5-billion in December 2015, when the sale agreement was signed, and April this year, when the money was paid.

The depositor list includes Moodley’s company Albatime.

State flags its own slack mine rehab policing

Moodley told the Sunday Times this week that Albatime had no involvement whatsoever with the transaction, “therefore there is no conflict”, despite detailed evidence to the contrary in Madonsela’s report.

The report said the conduct of Bank of Baroda “appears highly suspicious” and that the “frequency and amounts deposited” should have resulted in an investigation into money laundering.

Eskom payments also came under scrutiny.

Between January and April Eskom paid Tegeta R1.1-billion, R900-million of which was used to pay for Optimum.

Despite these payments the company found itself R600-million short.

On April 11, two days before payment was due, Eskom held an urgent special board tender committee meeting at 9pm to authorise a R660-million pre-payment agreement with Tegeta, later exposed by Carte Blanche and City Press.

Board members who authorised the pre-payment included Naidoo and Carrim.

On April 16 the Sunday Times called Molefe about the pre-payment. He did not confirm or deny it. But later that day his spokesman, Khulu Phasiwe, denied it in an e-mailed response to questions.

http://www.timeslive.co.za/sundaytimes/stnews/2016/11/06/How-to-hijack-a-coal-mine

South Africa

Pravin to be charged again

Abram Mashego, City Press, 6 Nov 2016

Finance minister Pravin Gordhan is expected to be charged again next month.

And this time, a determined Hawks and National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) team want to make sure they have a strong case against him and his co-accused.

The new charges will relate to the establishment of the so-called rogue unit in 2007, when Gordhan was commissioner of the SA Revenue Service (Sars).

Two senior Hawks officials and an NPA executive close to the investigation have told City Press that Gordhan and his former Sars deputy, Ivan Pillay, will be charged “before Christmas”.

“This is not overnight work. There is a lot that we still have to do, but they will be charged before Christmas,” said a senior Hawks official this week.

Another senior Hawks officer said: “The charges laid against them will include fraud, defeating the ends of justice and contravention of the Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-Related Information Act.”

City Press has learnt that the Hawks and the NPA are aiming to list Gordhan as “accused number 1” on the charge sheet.

National Director of Public Prosecutions Shaun Abrahams surprised many on October 11, when he announced charges against Gordhan, Pillay and former Sars commissioner Oupa Magashula.

He spent most of that press briefing speaking about the alleged illegal Sars unit – but opted instead to charge the three with fraud and contraventions of the Public Finance Management Act relating to Pillay’s early retirement.

City Press has also established that the Hawks team investigating Sars’ High Risk Investigation Unit, dubbed the rogue unit, has been beefed up with an additional two investigators as it scrambles for further evidence against Gordhan and several other former Sars employees, including former group executive for investigations Johann van Loggerenberg.

The Hawks detectives “recently” approached former deputy finance minister Jabu Moleketi for a statement, and asked him to provide information about the formation of the investigation unit, which he initially opposed.

According to a “secret” information note sent by the Hawks to State Security Minister David Mahlobo on January 20, Moleketi had expressed misgivings about the unit’s establishment in February 2007, when Gordhan approved it and then finance minister Trevor Manuel signed it off.

In the note, it states that Moleketi wrote on Gordhan’s application: “Supported – however, this is a strange way of executing what I consider to be an economic mandate of NIA [the National Intelligence Agency]. It seems as though it is an add-on rather than part of NIA’s mandate.”

Moleketi yesterday confirmed he was approached to provide a statement to the Hawks.

“I was approached and I submitted a statement through my lawyers,” he said.

A senior Hawks officer said the probe into the unit was a “prosecutorial-led investigation”, and the NPA was providing the team with guidance and instructions.

The information note sent to Mahlobo by lead investigating officer Brigadier Nyameka Xaba alleges that Gordhan and Pillay were instrumental in the creation of the rogue unit. Xaba heads up a specialised Hawks unit, which has been set up to probe crimes against the state.

City Press has learnt that the NPA has allocated four prosecutors – all from the Priority Crimes Litigation Unit, which Abrahams used to head – to lead the investigation team.

Abrahams told Parliament during his grilling before the justice portfolio committee on Friday that the investigation into the rogue unit was at an advanced stage, “and we will make sure we do not make the same mistakes here”.

A senior prosecutor, based at the NPA’s headquarters in Silverton in Pretoria, said it was the “first time I have seen four prosecutors being allocated to one case”.

The prosecutor, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Hawks detectives Xaba – as well as a Colonel H Maluleka, a Lieutenant Colonel S Palaza and a Captain M Sewele – were “regulars” in Abrahams’ office.

“They always meet in Shaun’s office. Lately, they have been given access cards. They are no longer required to sign the visitors’ registry and are no longer escorted through the building,” the prosecutor said.

NPA spokesperson Luvuyo Mfaku said no decision to prosecute Gordhan had yet been taken, adding: “The investigation is still under way.”

http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/exclusive-pravin-to-be-charged-again-20161106-2

International

Fear and Loathing: Nail-biting closing act to brutal Clinton-Trump race

Ranjeni Munusamy, Daily Maverick, 7 Nov 2016

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania:It is difficult to imagine politics uglier than the insults traded about snakes, witches and thieves ahead of South Africa’s local government elections. But the 2016 presidential elections in the United States have been a dragnet of vitriol, unsubstantiated accusations, hyperbole, bombast and bigotry. On Saturday Night Live this weekend, Alec Baldwin, who parodies Donald Trump in the skit, broke out of character, telling Kate McKinnon, who plays Hillary Clinton: “I just hate yelling all this stuff at you… I feel gross all the time.” The polarising campaign has left America feeling battered and dirty. And the new president is unlikely to be able to remedy this any time soon.

In case Hillary Clinton did not have enough problems already with the FBI and Wikileaks sabotaging her campaign, and a somewhat chilling alliance between Donald Trump and the Russians, she also has to contend with an onslaught from religious conservatives. Because of her pro-choice stance, some church leaders are warning their congregations that they will be consigned to eternal damnation if they vote for the candidate that encourages women’s right to choose.

“It is a mortal sin to vote Democrat… immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell,” proclaimed a flyer distributed at the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in San Diego, California. It also declared that Satan was working through Clinton.

Moderates in the church have denounced this but continue to emphasise “the sanctity of life” as a major determining factor in the election. Most church leaders ask people to vote according to their Christian conscience – whatever that might be.

With 83% of Americans identifying themselves as Christian, according to an ABCNEWS poll, church leaders are highly influential. If they are able to hold their noses over Trump’s crassness, racism and abusive behaviour towards women, he lines up with religious conservatives on emotive issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage, euthanasia, human cloning and embryonic stem cell research.

But this election is very much about the “lesser evil”, and not just for religious fundamentalists. Clinton’s flawed record has made her cannon fodder for the Republicans, and the ever-prevalent e-mail saga somehow manages to dwarf Trump’s numerous sexual, financial and ethical scandals. The FBI’s reopening of the investigation into the e-mails has led to a tightening of the gap between Clinton and Trump in the polls, meaning that she is having to work harder at chasing votes in the battlegrounds.

On Sunday it emerged that FBI Director James Comey notified key members of Congress that after reviewing all of the newly discovered e-mails, the agency would stand by its original findings against recommending charges.

But the damage has already been done.

While Trump’s rallies continue to draw massive crowds, the Clinton campaign has leaned heavily on big name celebrities to jack up turnout at events and at the polls.

Trump is relishing pointing this out.

After Clinton appeared on stage with Beyoncé and Jay Z in Cleveland, Ohio on Friday, Trump told his supporters in Reno, Nevada: “We didn’t bring any so-called stars along. We didn’t need them. The reason Hillary has to do that is, nobody comes for her. She can’t fill a room.”

“That’s almost like a form of cheating, right?” Trump added.

The dip in the polls after Comey’s letter to Congress about the e-mails was released last Friday has caused despondency for Clinton campaigners. At a Democrat campaign office in Bakery Square, Pittsburgh last week, volunteers were visibly sullen, having to face another uphill battle convincing voters to turn up at the polls.

Retired political journalist Mackenzie Carpenter, who works the phone bank at the campaign office, says it has been difficult to get people enthused about Clinton’s campaign. “Barack Obama’s time was very moving. Even though having a woman president is a big deal, people don’t feel the same sense of history.”

Carpenter, a straight-shooting former journalist who has covered many presidential elections, says Clinton does not have any magic touch and her baggage has weighed heavily on the campaign. “People need to be reminded how bad the alternative is,” she says. “But if Clinton was running against any other Republican, she would not be winning.”

Dr Louis Picard, director of the International Development Programme at the University of Pittsburgh, believes that despite all the problems they have faced, “the Democrats and Clinton are going to limp past the goal line” on Tuesday.

There has been “very sloppy management” on the part of the Clintons with their long-term style of behaviour from the 1990s of keeping things secret, says Picard. While Clinton might make a better president than she was a candidate, a huge slice of people in America might question her legitimacy as their leader after the election. This will be especially so if the election outcome is close, Picard says.

The interpretation of a number of Trump supporters, particularly those who are uneducated, is that Clinton is guilty of something criminal related to the e-mails, even if they do not know exactly what that would be. There is also a resistance to the last barriers to gender equality being broken down.

“There is almost an hypnotic process people fall into because of their built-in bias and irrational fear. Trump appeals to that and feeds their anger,” says Picard. “America is moving towards a non-white majority and that makes white people fearful, just like they were in South Africa.”

That is why, despite proposing absurdities like a wall to keep foreigners out, Trump is still closing in on Clinton.

For people like 26-year-old Lorena Tule-Romain, this also creates fear as the poll nears. When she was nine years old, she, her sister and their mother walked eight hours across the desert from Mexico into Texas. After a rigorous bureaucratic process, and having to live in limbo for many years, Tule-Romain finally got citizenship in August. She is married to an American citizen and has a young child, but still worries what a Trump presidency would mean for her and her family?

“I have been there and crossed that wall to come live here. Now it is like we are only welcome when we are needed,” she says. “For my mother it was a choice of life and death for us. If we had stayed in my home in Mexico, I don’t know if I would still be alive because of the drugs and crime. We risked our lives going through the desert,” Tule-Romain says.

Gisele Fetterman has similarly anxieties about her future under a Trump presidency, having come to the US from Brazil when she was eight years old. She is now married to the Mayor of Braddock in Western Pennsylvania and has three children. On Thursday she hosted a gathering of “Immigrants for Hillary” at her home.

“I am an American, a patriot, I love America more than most Americans do,” she says. “I am so grateful to live here, even excited to do jury duty earlier this year.”

Her husband, John Fetterman, is more cutting about what a President Trump would mean for his family and for America. “Donald Trump is unfit to serve as president. A vote for Trump will tilt this country towards anarchy.”

Fetterman says Trump’s rhetoric during the campaign has been “horrible and divisive”.

“As a father of three young kids, I find it wholly unacceptable. And it is just going to get more and more coarse.

“It must terrify the rest of the world, as it does us, that Donald Trump might have access to the nuclear codes,” Fetterman said.

As America lurches into the final hours before the vote, tensions and emotions are peaking. “Trumpkins” have taken to making death threats against editors of newspapers that have endorsed Clinton and mobs gathered outside some media organisations to protest their coverage, claiming bias.

In a country plagued by incidents of gun violence and where sexism, racism, xenophobia and homophobia still thrive, the 2016 election has brought out the worst in many Americans. The challenge from Wednesday might not be so much about making America great again but about becoming sane again.

http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-11-07-fear-and-loathing-nail-biting-closing-act-to-brutal-clinton-trump-race/#.WCAQ8E3lrIU

Comment & opinion

Capture of white capital

Mhlobo Gunguluzi, Letter, Business Day, 7 November 2016

I am very disturbed by this notion of "state capture", as if this is a new phenomenon in SA. When most people talk about state capture they are biased, because they do not talk about the Afrikaners’ capture of the state, or the fact that our state was captured by "white" monopoly capitalists long ago. State capture by the Zuptas is Mickey Mouse compared with this. I do not condone the Zuptas’ state capture, but it must be made clear to the public that the state is not neutral and never has been.

When the Afrikaners and "white" capital started negotiating with the ANC when it was in exile, it was clear the state could not defend the capitalists’ profits because the country was ungovernable and there were too many shop boycotts. They sought to manipulate the ANC, which was hungry for power.

They promised free and fair elections, but capital and the state remain controlled by white monopoly capital. The only thing the ANC got was government posts, whereby they could make themselves rich through high salaries. The high salaries gave incentives to ministers and MPs to want more money, hence corruption. President Jacob Zuma’s corrupt relationship with the Guptas is an extension of this.

The corruption of this man and his cronies has made us poorer, instead of taking us out of the poverty created by white monopoly capital. The ANC national leadership is not capable of governing this country. They are greedy loose cannons, who must be recalled from the government and Parliament. However, we must also know that neoliberal capitalism is a corrupt system too.

http://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/letters/2016-11-07-letter-capture-of-white-capital/

How Zuma Has Used the Capture of South Africa's State Institutions to Stay in Power

Dirk Kotze, The Conversation Africa, 6 Nov 2016

The withdrawal of charges against South Africa's Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan by the country's National Prosecuting Authority brings to mind events in 2008 when a judge quashed corruption charges against current President Jacob Zuma.

In his judgment Judge Chris Nicholson found that then President Thabo Mbeki had used state institutions to execute a political strategy to get rid of Zuma. The judge quashed the charges of corruption, money laundering and fraud against Zuma, removing a major obstacle to his becoming president of the country.

Now, as then, state institutions - in particular the criminal justice system - are being abused in internal power struggles within the governing African National Congress (ANC) and the government. Zuma's political survival is a core ingredient in both.

But he may have run out of road. Against the backdrop of the ANC's mounting appreciation of its recent electoral losses, this could be the year that determines his immediate future.

But much more than the president's future is at stake. The most significant long-term consequence of the machinations against Gordhan is the institutional damage caused to the priority crimes investigating unit of the police, the Hawks, and the country's National Prosecuting Authority.

Their credibility in the public eye is at an all-time low. While the courts are being used by opposition parties and civil society to challenge abuses, the criminal justice system is being used by members of the government to protect their interests. This might in fact be the real "state capture" rather than crony relationships between businessmen and government officials.

How did it come to this?

Gunning for Gordhan

Gordhan's woes began in earnest in February when the Hawks demanded his response to 27 questions about the erstwhile investigative unit at South African Revenue Services (SARS).

The questions centred around allegations that the SARS unit was engaged in rogue activities. Gordhan was the head of the revenue service at the time.

What followed over the next few months was a game of cat and mouse between the prosecuting authority and Gordhan. On May 20 the head of the Hawks, Lieutenant-General Berning Ntlemeza, confirmed that Gordhan was not a suspect in their investigation. His statement came as market sentiment towards South Africa intensified, threatening a downgrade of the country's sovereign rating.

The game ended, however, on August 25 when the Hawks summoned Gordhan to their offices to sign a warning statement. He refused.

On October 11 he was summoned to appear in court. The summons was the fourth time this year that Gordhan had been confronted by either the Hawks or the National Prosecuting Authority.

Is there a pattern in these events?

I believe there is. And it has to do with the country's National Treasury exercising its mandated independence. Efforts to thwart it began with the firing of then Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene in December 2015. Subsequently, a crisis developed each time the Treasury intervened in the management of state-owned enterprises such as South African Airways, the electricity utility Eskom or the South African Broadcasting Corporation.

The question of Treasury doing its job - part of which is to ensure that taxpayers' money is spent well and honestly - has also been inextricably tied up with the Gupta family's patronage relations with Zuma. The country seems to have found itself in crisis mode whenever this relationship has come under the spotlight.

The most startling incident included a statement by Deputy Finance Minister Mcebisi Jonas that he had been approached by members of the Gupta family and offered the job of finance minister. This was while Nene was still in the post.

The Guptas' contracts with Eskom about coal supplies and ownership of a mine also deepened the view that the Treasury was the only state institution which could arrest these developments, counter the patronage plague and reign in the Gupta business spree in state enterprises.

Gordhan appeared as the personification of the move to counter Zuma's and Guptas' designs on Treasury and a bulwark against fiscal ill-discipline, mismanagement of the state businesses. South Africa found itself in an unusual situation: a government minister had become the main counterbalance for the president.

Zuma's strategy

Zuma's apparent survival strategy in most instances is to look for a skeletons in the closet. In Gordhan's case, he thought he'd found one in the allegations that SARS engaged in illegal intelligence activities, on Gordhan's watch.

The strategy appears to work this way: whenever Treasury opposes a plan by Zuma, his allies in state companies and the Guptas the Hawks respond by making it known that they have resumed their SARS investigation. Then, once the issue has been resolved, as when Treasury relented and agreed to provide a loan guarantee for South African Airways, the Hawks investigation goes quiet.

This strategy reached a critical point when former Public Protector Thuli Madonsela indicated that her report into allegations that the Guptas had captured the state was ready for release.

The furore coincided with the Constitutional Court's refusal to grant the National Prosecuting Authority the right to appeal against the "spy tapes" judgment, raising the possibility that Zuma could once again face charges related to allegations of corruption that were dismissed in 2008.

These two developments posed a real threat to Zuma. He had to do something. So, the resuscitation of charges against Gordhan in the hope that the fear of losing his position as finance minister would neutralise him.

State capture by the presidents?

The use of the National Prosecuting Authority and the police in ANC presidential and succession struggles has a decade-long history. What's been different in the Zuma era is that a symbiosis has developed between the Hawks and the National Prosecuting Authority. This political contamination in their ranks is illustrated by the controversies around senior figures such as Glynnis Breytenbach, Johan Booysen, Anwa Dramat and Nomgcobo Jiba.

Pressing ahead with charges against Gordhan made one conclusion possible: Zuma had ultimately captured the Hawks and National Prosecuting Authority for his own political survival.

Abrahams' withdrawal of the charges against Gordhan has strengthened Gordhan's position immeasurably. And charging him again would create more risks for the National Prosecuting Authority. With the latest withdrawal Zuma has lost his bargaining chip against Gordhan. But that's not to say that the game is over.

Disclosure statement

Dirk Kotze does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

http://allafrica.com/stories/201611060216.html