Glenda Daniels
The in-fighting within South Africa’s civil society organisations over representation in the upcoming world summit is far from over.
In a new twist to the power play it emerged this week that the real split is between left-wing groups and is fuelled by efforts by the Congress of South AfricanTrade Unions to remain close to its alliance partner, the African National Congress.
A unionist from a Cosatu affiliate, who chose to remain anonymous, said this week that the “real story” is Cosatu is unhappy with what it considers to be “anti-ANC types” such as leaders of the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee and left-wing organisations that are boldly anti-privatisation, such as the Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF).
“Cosatu was furious that the APF got a presence on the Civil Society Indaba via the community urban group. They told the Indaba meeting very openly that they didn’t want a lot of groups who were anti-ANC and anti-government as part of the NGO forum. This has been happening since the very beginning.”
According to the unionist, Cosatu also did not want the Landless People’s Movement or Youth for Work included in the rural and youth groups. “They were placed in a dilemma once all these groups joined and started working hard. Cosatu doesn’t want to oppose the government but they are an ideological minority in the NGO forum and therefore will have to go along with the majority anti-government view.”
Cosatu spokesperson Patrick Craven characterised as untrue the allegations that ideological differences within the left were among the reasons for the fallout within civil society groups. He said the statement Cosatu released last month still applied, that the Indaba’s “structures do not ensure adequate representation of the main constituencies of civil society, as defined by the United Nations” and that therefore the Indaba “should … not raise funds or interact with official agencies as the representative of South African civil society”.
Cosatu claimed that the Indaba’s structures give “disproportionate power to small and unrepresentative NGOs and that the financial management of its secretariat “remains open to question” “Remuneration is extraordinarily high for non-profit civil society initially topping out at over R40000 a month, including car allowance, although this figure was reduced somewhat this January, following our protests.”
Cosatu walked out of the Indaba last month, announcing that it was setting up its own structure with some youth, women’s and church group representatives.
This week Craven said an alternative structure to the Civil Society Indaba was on the agenda for a meeting on Friday.