be crushed’
Jaspreet Kindra
Minister of Labour Membathisi Mdladlana likens the loss of workers as the restructuring of public enterprises takes place to the sacrifice of human life during the African National Congress’s struggle against apartheid.
“I was just remarking that the Reconstruction and Development Programme implies rebuilding and destroying apartheid structures. There is going to be mortar, dust and scaffolding and there will be those who will be crushed,” he said.
“When we went to fight against the apartheid regime, we knew there will be those of us who will not see the light of the day but that did not dissuade us from fighting.”
He was commenting on the Congress of South African Trade Unions’ (Cosatu) planned strike action over privatisation at the end of the month and the strain on the partnership between tripartite alliance organisations.
“Unfortunately our country achieved freedom in the midst of globalisation with its constraints and threats. Look around you we inherited the capitalist system, we have to operate in it. Everybody wants capital … Even Madiba has said ‘I also want to be rich.'”
He defends South African Communist Party members in the Cabinet: “All members of the SACP and Cosatu who are in government implement the policies of the ANC as per the party’s code of conduct. The alliance is an ANC-led alliance.”
He acknowledges that contradictory worlds exist side by side in South Africa the capitalist world that resides largely in urban South Africa and the developing one with its myriad problems of unemployment and a lack of essential services such as water and electricity that is mainly concentrated in the rural areas.