Manuel caught in Cosatu’s crosshairs

Trade union federation Cosatu has declared war on Trevor Manuel, the minister in the presidency responsible for the national planning commission (NPC), accusing him of trying to take over the running of the country.

The labour federation also took aim this week at the remnants of the 1996 ‘class project”, the term used to describe former president Thabo Mbeki’s supporters. Cosatu president Sidumo Dlamini fingered Manuel as the last ‘hope” for the revival of the group, which lost the ANC presidency to Jacob Zuma in Polokwane.

Dlamini told the Mail & Guardian this week that Manuel was using the NPC to position himself as the country’s ‘second in charge”.

The ANC and its alliance partners had initially understood that the NPC would ‘coordinate” government work and ensure implementation, said Dlamini. But it now looked as though Manuel wanted to develop plans for departments and give them a blueprint to implement, and ‘that would be depriving them of any opportunity to plan on their own. That, for us, is a danger,” he said.

Manuel is seeking to restore ‘what he lost” when he left the treasury: ‘He wants to be seen again as this super-minister and every minister should go to him, bow his head and say, ‘Please, Mr Manuel, can we have this?’” said Dlamini.

Cosatu’s 10th national congress next week will discuss the NPC’s Green Paper, released by Manuel this month. Zwelinzima Vavi, the general secretary, will present the political report, which raises ­concerns about Manuel’s excessive power.

The Green Paper gave — for the first time — a clear idea of how the new NPC will function.

‘From where we sit right now, we smell that [the NPC] is nothing else but an attempt to ­displace the role of Cabinet ministers and put it squarely under the super­vision of Manuel,” said Dlamini.

He said that when Manuel told international leaders at this year’s World Economic Forum that South African business people were cowards who gave in easily to labour’s demands he was not only positioning himself as a ‘spokesperson” or a ‘senior shop steward” for business, but also as one of the best minds in the country, said Dlamini.

Cosatu is also concerned that Manuel has undermined Ebrahim Patel, minister of economic development, by attempting to develop economic policy. The ­federation nominated former unionist Patel for Jacob Zuma’s Cabinet.

Dlamini said Manuel wanted economic policy located within the NPC. But Patel’s ‘department is [Cosatu’s] hope of moving away from the 1996 economic policy trajectory that Gear [the growth, employment and redistribution programme] imposed on us”, he said.

Manuel has always been seen as the architect of Gear under Mbeki’s leadership. Cosatu opposed this ­economic policy from the outset, but was outgunned by Mbeki’s administration.

‘[Manuel] is the hope for those wounded people who felt that the class project was okay, who rubbed shoulders with Mbeki,” Dlamini said.

‘Nothing has changed in their minds.”

There were people in both the ANC and the Cabinet, he said, who had a ‘natural hatred” for the left — ‘people who feel they cannot allow the left to have influence in the ANC and government, who feel that to allow trade unions to be part and parcel of this movement is not right”.

Defence Minister Lindiwe Sisulu is one of these and her language is ‘union bashing”. ‘The language that says we must clamp down and close unions in certain sections of our economy, like in the defence. We think that is the crazy idea,” said Dlamini.

The Mbeki regime allowed the unions to exist, he said: ‘They did not speak to them, but at least they never banned them. Terror [Mosiuoa Lekota, the former defence minister] did not [ban them], so why should Lindiwe do it?

‘We are not going to fold our arms and say that because we’re in an alliance and we’re friends we’re not going to say anything about that. Soldiers marched to Luthuli House. Is it because it was prior to elections that the situation was not handled the way it is being handled now?”

The ANC has denounced Cosatu’s attack on Manuel, saying it damages the debate the NPC’s Green Paper offers. ‘The issues contained in the discussion papers outlive individuals,” said the party in a statement. The ANC called on interested ­parties to ‘debate principles” instead of individual personalities.