The liberation movement of South Africa is the oldest and the most progressive on the continent. It has through decades produced revolutionaries who are respected the world over. It has developed deep-rooted cultures and traditions that must be protected even as new challenges are brought about by conditions created by that very struggle.
I am talking about the culture of solidarity, selflessness and putting our people first. I am talking about the traditions of understanding that our individual concerns come second to the concerns of the masses. I talk here about the deep culture of service to our people, even if it means individual suffering.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has noted with deep concern the recent story in the Mail & Guardian suggesting that MPs did not disclose business interests, as required by the parliamentary code of ethics (”MPs who tried to cover their assets”, September 3).
Coming hot on the heels of the parliamentary travel voucher scandal, this runs the serious risk of undermining the credibility of our Parliament in the eyes of ordinary people.
The matter of the travel vouchers is sub judice, and we therefore will not comment on the detail of the allegations. Still, it is accepted, including by Parliament, that serious fraud has been perpetrated, with the collusion of at least some MPs.
A few weeks ago the media carried another story claiming that one of our struggle icons received a ”gift” house of R1,6-million and a car worth R320 000 from a company of which he is the ”non-executive chair”.
Unless Parliament and the African National Congress act proactively to deal with these matters, ethical MPs and political leaders will be tarred with the same brush.
Madiba recently pointed to the need to overcome this crass materialism, which is replacing the solidarity that informed our struggle. President Thabo Mbeki has repeatedly called on those who joined the ANC for material gains (instead of to serve our people) to leave the movement.
The media has, over the years, printed stories — often not contested by those accused — suggesting that some of our leaders and sometimes their spouses earn huge sums outside their official positions. This is largely through directorships of companies, including through empowerment stakes.
Sometimes one wonders how provincial or national leaders can, in short periods of time, afford to buy farms worth millions when their salaries could never be adequate to finance such opulent lifestyles.
This suggests that the movement must conduct a broader investigation into how our leaders are accumulating wealth. I am raising this matter, sensitive as it is, now instead of later. Because later, a finger that is raised in protest may be chopped. At that time our slogan ”an injury to one is an injury to all” would be replaced by capital’s slogan, ”an injury to one is an opportunity to another!”
Certainly, the transition to democracy brings a host of new economic, social and political opportunities for our people. The question is how we manage these opportunities to ensure a positive outcome for society as a whole.
International experience shows the risks and some successes. We do not want to end up with the sort of short-sighted, selfish predator state we have seen in some parts of Latin America and Africa — and which seems to have emerged today in the United States, given the close ties between George W Bush’s administration and big oil companies. A number of questions arise for thorough discussion within Cosatu, the alliance and the broader democratic movement. These are:
How can we end competition among our leaders around consumption — who has the biggest house, car or vacation — and return to competition around service, solidarity and activism?
How do we put an end to this big hurry to get rich faster?
How do we stop use of political office for the pursuit of wealth?
How can we stop politics becoming discredited in the eyes of ordinary people if political office translates into a style of living way beyond the people who put us in office in the first place?
Corruption will soon become endemic unless we drive active campaigns against it. Yet we know too often that the media and the opposition dramatise stories that are proven later to be incorrect. But we know where there is smoke there is often fire. Only ordinary people can make a difference. The challenge is: How do we empower ordinary people to fight corruption?
At a practical level, if an individual has substantial private business interests, can she or he realistically carry out full-time service obligations in government or in unions? This creates a problem because people are distracted from their core work by their investments.
Finally, and most fundamentally, how do new opportunities for ownership affect the class position and interests of our leaders? Class position is not defined only by ownership. Rather, it relates to the entire complex of economic interests and integration into social groups. Above all, then, how can we ensure that our leaders in the unions, the government, service organisations and other structures maintain organic links to workers and the poor, even if they no longer share workers’ economic and social conditions in the townships, informal settlements, villages and farms? At what point (and how) does investment in private enterprise change the class interest of those involved?
Another fundamental question arises. Are the salaries the society pays to its public representatives adequate? If they are adequate, why is it becoming a norm for public representatives engaged in all manner of activities to earn more money? Cosatu has long argued that our public representatives should be remunerated adequately.
The answers to these questions should underpin a discussion on whether there are fair and viable limits to entrepreneurial activity by people in service or leadership positions. Cosatu hopes to work with the alliance to launch a discussion that reaches all our local structures. While that discussion continues, I want to make the following calls:
I call on communists and trade unionists within and outside government who have substantial business interests to consider resigning their positions in the South African Communist Party and in the trade union movement. No one can serve the lion and the sheep at the same time. You cannot be a working class hero during the day and a brutal exploiter of workers when the sun sets. Broadly, you cannot be the champion of the poor while your own material condition is one of opulence, and while you live like the ruling elite whose ideology is to keep the huge divide between rich and poor.
Parliament and the ANC must act decisively against those who have developed amnesia about their business interests. Claiming to have forgotten business interests suggests a degree of dishonesty and that those involved are hiding something.
Cosatu and its affiliates must move even faster to ensure that our leaders do not benefit unduly from our investment companies, and that our investments do more to support development, rather than just enriching investment managers.
Zwelinzima Vavi is general secretary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions. This is an edited version of a speech delivered at the South African Clothing and Textile Workers Union congress two weeks ago