The future of Cabinet spokesperson Jimmy Manyi is uncertain following the race row that erupted over his comments first about coloureds and then about Indians.
Last week a video came to light showing Manyi on a Kyknet talk show, Robinson Regstreeks, in March last year. On it he says coloured people are “over-concentrated” in the Western Cape and need to move to other provinces to find jobs. On Wednesday the Democratic Alliance added fuel to the fire with another video clip.
This shows Manyi addressing a Durban meeting of Indian business people in February last year and saying Indians “bargained their way to the top”. An embattled Manyi told the Mail & Guardian on Thursday he would not apologise for saying that because he had made the comment in jest.
“What must I apologise for? It was said on a lighter note. Did you not hear the people laughing in the background,” Manyi said after a Cabinet briefing on Thursday in which he fielded questions about the controversy.
He said he felt confident in his job. Asked whether the race row affected his effectiveness, he declared: “You be the judge of that.” Dressed smartly in a pink shirt and baby-blue tie, Manyi told journalists he had “no clue” why the controversy — which now includes Planning Minister Trevor Manuel calling him a “worst-order racist” — was not discussed in the Cabinet meeting.
Manyi said there were “no issues” between him and Manuel and they shook hands at the Cabinet meeting. President Jacob Zuma is on a state visit to France. The ANC has questioned the Cabinet’s silence on the issue and Jackson Mthembu, the party spokesperson, said the ANC trusted that the government would “do the right thing”.
“We have good people in Cabinet,” he said. “We will ask them why are they keeping quiet. They appointed him so we can’t tell them what to do. But we are sure they will do the right thing.”
Mud-slinging
Manyi’s comments would be discussed at the next national executive committee (NEC) meeting of the ANC, Mthembu said. Manuel is on the committee but Manyi is not. The ANC has condemned Manyi’s statement about coloured people but did not get involved in the mud-slinging between him and Manuel.
Mthembu said the matter would be handled “internally” because the ANC condemned public spats and because Manuel wrote his letter to Manyi in his personal capacity, not as a minister or an NEC member. But Manyi is unlikely to be sacked, according to several role players in the government and ANC, although many are unhappy about his Âcomments and the controversy now surrounding him.
“The ANC may tell him to issue a proper apology, not one through Vusi Mona [Manyi’s deputy],” a senior government official said. “There is no culture of people falling on their sword. There is no real accountability and in government he has some level of protection.” But a senior ANC leader said: “The ANC must deal with this issue of celebrity politicians who say whatever they want and get away with it. Manyi must learn to think before he speaks.”
Some opposition parties have called for Manyi to be fired and trade union federation Cosatu has called for an investigation of his conduct. “[His conduct] casts serious aspersions on his suitability for senior public office,” Western Cape Cosatu leader Tony Ehrenreich said. Neither Zuma nor Manyi’s political principal, Collins Chabane, has commented on the matter.
A government official said Manyi’s appointment was received with scepticism but it was clear that Zuma, who appoints the directors general, wanted “someone who is assertive”. “The president needed someone who can bark. Manyi is more articulate than most of the other options and was less diplomatic than his predecessor,” the official said.
Leaders in government and Luthuli House agree that Manyi’s comments, coupled with proposed amendments to labour legislation that could see one million coloured workers lose their jobs, will cost the ANC votes in the coming municipal elections in the Western Cape.
Sound bite
One said: “It is putting unnecessary pressure on us. The DA is already using [Manyi’s comments] as a sound bite in our communities. They have to do absolutely nothing now in terms of campaigning.”
Andrew Koopman, the editor of Die Son newspaper, which sells 984Â 000 copies in the Western and Eastern Cape daily — said his readers said they were tired of playing second fiddle.
“If you look at the text messages and letters we get, it is clear readers feel they are not taken seriously. The ANC dug its own grave here in the Western Cape with the labour legislation.”
He said that in spite of the election of a coloured leader, the deputy international relations minister, Marius Fransman, to head the ANC in the province, the party would fail to make inroads in coloured communities.
“Many of our people would rather trust a white man than a black man. It’s historical. We used to look up to the white man because he had the money, the car and the house. That is still in the back of people’s minds,” Koopman said.
Cape Town-based analyst Justin Sylvester said Manyi’s comments created the impression that the ANC was the exclusive domain of black people. “The comments, with the legislation, have an alienating effect on the working class, which is where the ANC wants to win back voters,” he said.
Fransman and Buti Manamela, the labour portfolio committee chairperson, addressed coloured leaders in Cape Town this week. One of those present, Danny Titus, said they were assured that the legislation would be amended to exclude clauses that disadvantaged coloured people.
How his trouble started
Proposed amendments to legislation on employment equity are what got government spokesperson Jimmy Manyi into trouble. Employment equity was originally determined at both national and provincial levels according to a province’s specific demographics.
In the Western Cape, where more than half the population is coloured, equity legislation used to require that the law be applied in ways that ensured coloureds were not disadvantaged by national targets. But this provision would be scrapped in proposed new legislation, which would compel all provinces to have the same employment equity targets as the national ones.
Trade union Solidarity says this would disadvantage one million coloured people in the Western Cape and 300Â 000 Indian people in KwaZulu-Natal because the provisions for them would be the same as the national targets.
In his interview on Robinson Regstreeks, last year Manyi, then director general of labour, said that this would compel coloured people to move to other parts of the country, where their race group was under-represented and the demand for coloured people to fill jobs was higher. Parliament is still discussing the proposed amendments.