President Thabo Mbeki called on the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) on Monday to mobilise for the African National Congress in the upcoming local government elections.
”We will, of course, win the upcoming local government elections,” Mbeki told a Cosatu central committee meeting at Esselen Park, Kempton Park.
”We must do that. It is not possible for us to say someone else will win it.
”Together with you, we can do more, better.”
Mbeki said the ANC and Cosatu are well placed to implement the people’s contract to create jobs and fight poverty.
The proof of that lay in the outcome of last year’s national elections, which showed that the broad majority of South Africans had heard and believed the ANC’s manifesto and thought it addressed their interests and concerns.
In a speech in which he promised to say nothing new — a vow he kept — Mbeki said policy debates within the ANC and the broader tripartite alliance are past. The present and future are for their implementation.
He said the central committee ought to set itself the task of taking ”stock of what was decided in the past, what we did with those decisions and where we have to go to next”.
Mbeki, introduced to delegates as the president of the Republic and the ANC as well as ”the leader of our revolution”, said the outcome of the 2004 election was ”a new and decisive shift in the balance of forces in favour of the democratic forces”.
As such, it should be the basis to further the national democratic revolution.
Mbeki warned that documents such as the tripartite alliance’s national programme of action cannot remain ”just words on a piece of paper” but have to be ”the guide to everything we do” if the alliance is to be successful in reshaping the country.
It is his perception that not enough is happening in that regard. The government cannot succeed by itself.
The trade-union movement and the broader public have to be mobilised to assist in meaningful ways in the economy and in service delivery.
”Without them, we will not get the results we need,” Mbeki said.
New finance for housing
Speaking before Mbeki, South African Communist Party general secretary Blade Nzimande called for a new model for financing low-cost houses.
”The 20-year mortgage bond calculated on compound interest is inappropriate for financing low-cost housing. If the banks developed Umzansi [a low-cost savings account], we need Umzansi for low-cost housing; that is, a shorter but affordable payment period, for houses to be paid, ideally, in less than 10 years.”
He also repeated a call for a one-off debt forgiveness for those listed with credit bureaux to ”give workers a second chance”.
In his opening address to the conference, set to sit until Thursday, Cosatu president Willie Madisha said ”the first, major and urgent challenge we face as we gather here today and over the next four days, is the wave of anger and militancy of workers of our country and across almost all industries and sectors”.
Madisha said the anger, some years in the making, requires a response.
Factors contributing, he said, are a growing wage gap, employer hostility, job losses, a lack of job security and racism.
He said that while average workers earn less than R2 000 a month, many executives pocket R50 000 or more for the same period and earn millions more in perks and bonuses at the year-end.
Referring to unrest among municipal workers, he said it is unconscionable that some municipal managers, often meant to serve truly poor communities, earn more a month than Mbeki.
The labour leader also took umbrage at employer arrogance, such as the refusal of some municipalities last week even to accept memoranda from striking workers, despite appeals from Cosatu’s national leadership in that regard.
”What disturbs one is the fact that it was mainly black managers … that falls in this category,” Madisha said. — Sapa