Jaspreet Kindra The African National Congress’s top leadership has still to work out the details of the voluntary community service programme, or matsema, announced by President Thabo Mbeki at the weekend and launched this month. Mbeki’s announcement, entitled “Statement of the National Executive Committee of the African National Congress”, is up for discussion at the national executive committee’s meeting next week, according to a top ANC official. The announcement was that the programme’s first phase, services in the education sector, was to run this month. The plan envisages month-long drives by ANC branches on different issues. Voluntary service in safety and security; human rights; health; rural, urban and community development; youth development; African and international solidarity; women’s emancipation; culture and heritage; rights of the child; and environment have all been allocated a month this year. The lack of detail on the plan prompted one influential unionist, who asked not to be named, to dismiss it as a “gimmick”. The unionist said: “The purpose of such an initiative should be to empower the community. You just can’t get party branch members to clear bush around schools for a month and move on to something else next month. We need to train volunteers in communities to bring in long-term benefits. “The programme, aimed at reviving the activist character of the party and integrating the party and the community at branch level, seems to have been put together hurriedly and has not been thought through.” Thulas Naxesi, general secretary of the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union, commented: “The call in itself should be welcomed. But it remains to be seen how the programme will be thrashed out between the structures of the ANC and its alliance partners.” Mbeki said in his ANC 90th anniversary announcement that in January ANC branch members should help to “improve the physical infrastructure and surroundings of our schools, protecting these places of learning from vandalism and creating an environment conducive to the entrenchment of the culture of learning, teaching and discipline”. Pressed this week on the programme, ANC secretary-general Kgalema Motlanthe would only say that the details would be discussed at next week’s meeting of the national executive. Described by Mbeki as a “voluntary service to the people to recapture the community spirit of letsema, ilima”, some party members said it evoked memories of the Masakhane and the Batho Pele that Mbeki referred to in his speeches in earlier years. But both the campaigns were not mentioned in this year’s speech. Sceptical unionists also referred to the numerous references Mbeki made to the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) and the Freedom Charter, one joking that the ANC’s alliance partner, Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), might have nothing to argue about at its long overdue bilateral with the ruling party this Saturday. The weekend meeting between the ANC and Cosatu is expected to deal with differences over government’s privatisation programme. It will be the first since the ANC’s public accusations last year that ultra-leftists in the federation were considering launching their own party. The ANC’s virtual abandonment of the left-leaning RDP in favour of the growth, employment and redistribution strategy has been a major source of tension between the alliance partners. Cosatu has often complained about the ANC’s departure from the principles of the Freedom Charter. Mbeki appeared to be humouring the left in his address. He called on the “vanguard movement” to ensure that the Freedom Charter played a role as a “living document”, referring to the “redistribution of wealth”, and the charter’s ringing call for the people to “share in the country’s wealth” and the land to be shared among those who work on it. At the same time he insisted there could be no return to a closed economy, urged increased economic competitiveness, called for measures to ensure South Africa benefited from globalisation and reaffirmed government’s commitment to promoting black commercial agriculture. None of this would have pleased the left. Senior ANC leaders including Peter Mokaba, Popo Molefe and Ngoako Ramatlhodi dismissed claims this week that Mbeki was merely “talking left”. Defending Mbeki, they said the RDP and the Freedom Charter had always underpinned ANC policies and programmes. The duality of Mbeki’s approach was decried by Cosatu in one of its political discussion papers last year: “Despite its [the ANC’s] use of Marxist rhetoric and the commitment in principle to working-class leadership, the reality is that the free market ideology has gained prominence It opens the door to talking left, while adopting policies that effectively strengthen capital.” Cosatu president Willie Madisha and general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi shared the platform in Durban this week. However, Vavi expressed his regret afterwards that Mbeki made only passing reference to the Tripartite Alliance. Mbeki mentioned the alliance while talking about strengthening the unity of the national democratic revolution. Mbeki’s one-line reference to Aids also came in for criticism. While talking about the ills of poverty, he said the country had become synonymous with Aids and that the disease had to be countered along with other diseases.