ANC Today

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Volume 6, No. 8, 3-9 March 2006

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THIS WEEK:

* Letter from the President: The People Have Spoken - Victory to the ANC!
* Elections 2006: More voters place their confidence in the ANC
* Government programme update #2: Investing in human capital for growth

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LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT

The People Have Spoken - Victory to the ANC!

In my Letter last week, I wrote about the then impending 1 March local
government elections, the third since the advent of our democracy in 1994. Among
other things, I said: "Decentralisation, resulting in the consolidation of our
system of local government, must lead us to the achievement of the strategic
outcome identified in this year's January 8th Statement - the exercise of
People's Power through Democratic Local Government. Relying on the great
confidence of the masses of our people in our movement, our immediate task in
this context is to go all out to achieve a decisive ANC victory in the March 1st
elections!"

As we go to press, the process of counting the votes cast, as well as auditing
and publishing the results of these important elections has not been completed.
However, we can say most definitely, that we have achieved the decisive ANC
victory we urged all our members and supporters to work for!

Once more the masses of our people have confirmed their confidence in our
movement as the leading representative and repository of their hopes and
aspirations. For our movement and indeed for all democrats, the days ahead of us
must and will be days of celebration.

There are many things that we must celebrate. We must celebrate the fact that we
have further entrenched our position as the largest political formation in our
country, freely chosen by our people as the leading party of government in all
three spheres of government. We must celebrate the fact that the masses of our
people continue to support the ANC perspective of progressive social
transformation, and unreservedly acknowledge the positive changes we have
brought about since 1994.

We must celebrate the fact that, once more, we have held free, fair and largely
peaceful elections, whose results reflect the will of the people. We must
celebrate the reality that the principal actors in our electoral process,
including the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), the contending political
parties and formations, civil society and the mass media, contributed severally
and collectively to the further consolidation of democracy in our country.

This celebration will be particularly joyful because of the determined attempt
that was made by some in our country to project a national mood of gloom and
despair ahead of, during and immediately after the elections. These Jeremiah's
threw everything they could at our people, striving to convince them that the
elections would be something other than the celebration of democracy that they
were.

These sought to convey the message that the elections would inevitably be a
bitter manifestation of mass anger, frustration and despair, especially targeted
against our movement, the ANC. Symptomatic of a perverse determination to
communicate nothing but negative messages, one of our leading newspapers
welcomed Election Day, 1 March, with the entirely false banner headline - "Poll
On Knife-Edge", and the sub-heading, "Threats of violence, power cuts,
flooding".

Determined to spread gloom, this newspaper began the front page article
appearing under these headlines with the words: "A country racked by cross-
border disputes, flooding, power-cuts and service delivery protests goes to the
polls today for its third local government elections."

To ensure that its negative message was not lost on anybody, in the same article
it said: "Talk Radio 702 received an e-mail which read: "...As you are fond of
electricity cut-offs on the poor and oppressed in South Africa, so taste a bit
of that which they taste! And let you businesses lose out, in an economy where
the poor see no benefits."

In the days before the elections, others, including the international media,
allowed themselves to be infected by the determination to communicate a highly
negative picture of our country. For instance, on 24 February, less than a week
before our elections, one of these published a story under the headline - "South
Africa: Tired of waiting - frustration mounts over promised change".

The article told a haunting tale of gloom, as a result of which it said our
movement "is believed to be facing its sternest test yet as unquestioning
support gives way to a degree of criticism from the poor over the pace of
change."

In an article published on 2 March, the day after our elections, another foreign
news medium wrote: "The ANC, despite having triumphed in every election since
Nelson Mandela led it to victory in 1994, has seen its latest campaign blighted
by discontent at lack of basic services, unemployment, and corruption. Tackling
the thorny issue of land reform may have been seen within the ANC as a timely
way of showing its traditional supporters it is still fighting their corner."

It went on to quote a white farmer, one van Zyl, as saying that by challenging
the principle of 'willing seller and willing buyer' with regard to the land
question, "(the ANC) is trying to ensure votes by giving the impression it is
going to take a stand against the uncooperative (white) farmers."

Reading and listening to much of what was written and said before, during and
immediately after our local government elections, it would be difficult to
escape the conclusion that the masses of our people had lost confidence in the
ANC and were in open revolt against our movement.

As part of this, a determined attempt was made to convince all and sundry that
the socio-economic condition of our people 12 years after our liberation was
worse than it had been during the apartheid years, and that our democracy was
unravelling because of violence, power failures and natural catastrophes, among
other negative impulses.

All this was intended to communicate the message that our people, our country
and our movement are walking backwards into a new Age of Darkness! It was said
that all this would reflect in a tellingly poor electoral showing for the ANC
during the elections.

The newspaper, "Cape Times", celebrated its 120th anniversary ten years ago in
1996. I was privileged to speak at a Cape Town Banquet on 3 April 1996,
organised to celebrate this anniversary. On that occasion I said:

"In the Supplement on the "Cape Times" which the "Cape Times" carried a week
ago, the distinguished editor of the paper, Moegsien Williams, writes that: 'A
typical South African newsroom is an unhappy place, staffed by demotivated,
mainly junior reporters and frustrated sub-editors who are expected to cover and
produce newspapers able to reflect accurately an increasingly complex society.'

"Further on (Moegsien Williams) says: 'We want to redefine the news. We sense it
can't be 'journalism as usual' in the new South Africa... In practical terms,
redefining the news means getting closer to the readership by engagement, new
contacts, new story ideas and a move away from stereotypes...While we will
expose society's ills and wrongs, we will be its cheerleaders when things go
right and there are successes. While we will be opposed to many things, we are
able for the first time to be passionately and uncompromisingly in favour of
some things, especially our new-born democracy.' "

However, with regard to the recent local government elections, many in our
media, and some others flatteringly described as "analysts", wrote and spoke
"passionately and uncompromisingly" to ensure that there were no "cheerleaders
when things go right and there are successes". 'Demotivated' and 'frustrated'
people communicated in a determined manner that seemed intended to mock all
those 'in favour of our new-born democracy'.

This gave birth to the manufactured sense of unmitigated despair that was
projected and fervently propagated specifically to create an atmosphere in which
the population would be encouraged to reduce its support for our movement. In
terms of this strategy, everybody had to be convinced that our movement had
failed the people and that it constitutes a threat to the achievement of the
goal of a better life for all!

The 2006 local government elections have now taken place. In the practice they
have communicated the message that many of the negative pre-election predictions
were nothing more than ill-intentioned wishes that were father to the thought
that gave birth to such headlines as the one that said "Poll On Knife-Edge"!

At no point were the elections ever on a "knife-edge". They were never
threatened by a scale of violence that would render them neither free nor fair.
No power failures took place to disrupt the electoral process. Neither the
persistent rain nor the resultant floods had a major impact on the people's
determination to exercise their democratic right to vote.

There was no voter abstention, relative to the previous local government
elections. Indeed the number of people who voted increased. Of great
significance, whatever the concern about the 'pace of service delivery', this
had no impact on popular support for the ANC!

Regularly during the election campaign we communicated a number of messages that
have proved to be correct, as we knew they were. We said that more of our people
had come to understand the importance of local government and would therefore
participate in the elections.

We said that the masses of our people were optimistic about their future and
understood that government in general and local government in particular would
play an important role in achieving this outcome. We said this would reflect
itself in significant voter participation.

We said that the masses of our people had direct experience of what our movement
had done as a governing party to change their lives for the better. This would
reflect itself in the electoral re-affirmation of the confidence of the people
in our movement.

We expressed our confidence that the local government elections would be free
and fair. In this regard we said that we were certain that the IEC and the state
security organs would create the conditions for our people freely to express
their will in all parts of our country.

All these predictions, born of an intimate understanding of our national
reality, have come true. Almost completely, the elections took place with no
violence, intimidation, attempted fraud and serious administrative weaknesses.
All physical material obstacles to free and fair elections were removed on time,
including those related to the weather and power supplies.

Our movement has emerged from the elections stronger than ever before, having
increased its support within our system of local government. There are now much
fewer "no-go areas" than ever before, especially in KwaZulu Natal.

More minority political formations have entered the political scene, beyond the
major parties, especially in the Western Cape, thus strengthening the
representative nature of our democracy. Simultaneously, the remaining
"Bantustan" parties, a carry-over from the apartheid years, have continued to
lose support.

Millions of our people heard, understood and accepted the message of hope
contained in our Local Government Election Manifesto. In this regard we must
thank the hundreds of thousands of ANC members and volunteers who took this
message to the people and succeeded to encourage millions to vote.

We must also thank the masses of our people who continued to demonstrate both
their commitment to the success of our democracy and their confidence in our
movement as the leading national force in the continuing struggle to build a
people-centred society that would provide a better life for all.

In our Manifesto we said: "The ANC is determined to make local government work
better. We have a plan to achieve this...We will intervene to ensure that
councils work better, and are accountable to the community...We will resolutely
fight laziness, arrogance and corruption. The ANC is best placed to build
partnerships between national and provincial governments and municipal councils,
and thus make things happen faster, more effectively and in the interest of the
people...We are committed to building a non-sexist South Africa. Half of the
candidates standing for the ANC are women...

"All of us want better service in our schools, community clinics and government
offices. We all want better opportunities to improve the lives of our families.
Every community deserves decent sanitation, good roads, clean neighbourhoods and
street lighting. Together, if we join in a People's Contract, we can achieve
these goals, so that each one of us can experience a better life under the South
African sky."

The masses of our people heard and welcomed these messages of hope and therefore
voted for the ANC. The task ahead of us is to do everything in our power to
honour the commitment we made to the people to implement our Plan to make local
government work better for all our people. In this regard, the ANC will not
disappoint the expectations of the people or in any way betray the confidence of
these masses in our movement

Thabo Mbeki

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ELECTIONS 2006

More voters place their confidence in the ANC

With most of the results declared in the 2006 local government elections, it is
clear that an overwhelming majority of South African voters have placed their
confidence in the ANC to lead the process of building better communities and
improving the living conditions of all South Africans.

While the final results were still being awaited as this edition of ANC TODAY
was published, a number of important trends had already become evident.

More South Africans have voted in this election than in any previous local
government election. From those municipalities whose results have so far been
declared by the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), the data indicates that
the absolute number of people who cast their vote in this election is
significantly higher than in the 2000 local government election. It should be
noted, however, that because the number of registered voters has increased over
this period, the percentage turnout may be lower in some councils.

The ANC vote has grown. The absolute number of people who have cast their votes
for the ANC is significantly higher than in the 2000 election, as is the
percentage of votes the ANC received in most councils. This is the case in
councils throughout the provinces.

The DA vote has shrunk. In most municipalities that have been declared, the
Democratic Alliance (DA) has lost a significant number of voters. Many thousands
of voters who voted for the DA in the declared municipalities in 2000 have not
given the party their vote in this election. This is particularly the case in
the Western Cape, where the DA's support has dropped in most councils. Results
from the Cape Town metro, though not final at the time of publication, indicate
that the DA may have lost more than 10% of its share of the vote in the city.

In KwaZulu Natal the sharp decline in votes for the IFP that has been a trend
over the last few years has continued unabated. The ANC, on the other hand, has
significantly increased its number of votes, especially in small towns. For
example, the ANC has won the KwaSani Municipality, gaining 70% of the popular
vote, compared with 45% in 2000.

Besides the ANC, the Independent Democrats (ID) appear to have benefitted in the
decline of support for other parties. As a party that did not exist at the time
of the previous local government elections, the ID has picked up a significant
share of the vote, particularly in the Western Cape.

These preliminary observations indicate that South Africans have heeded the call
to make local government a dynamic and integral instrument in the struggle to
improve the lives of our people. They have endorsed the plan to make local
government work better for all South Africans, and have indicted their readiness
to play an active part in ensuring that it is effectively implemented.

More Information

Independent Electoral Commission
http://www.elections.org.za/

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GOVERNMENT PROGRAMME UPDATE #2

Investing in human capital for growth

Following the state of the nation address in February, cabinet ministers
addressed a number of briefings on progress in the implementation of
government's programme of action. This week we publish an edited extract of the
briefing on the skills development strategy:

Skills Development will be a key element of the Accelerated and Shared Growth
Initiative for South Africa (ASGISA). There is compelling evidence that points
to the strong relationship between investments in human capital (education,
training, health and nutrition) and economic growth and development

The need to improve the quality of human resources is important for developing
countries firstly for its role in improving the quality of life of peoples and
building democracy but also for its role in the attraction of foreign direct
investment.

Our first major challenge is to improve the quality of general and further
education, as these are the foundation for skills development. Secondly, we need
to strengthen and accelerate collaboration and coordination of our various
initiatives. Third, the foundation in each area of skills is mathematics and
science achievement.

Strengthening the school system

Studies conducted in South Africa and abroad confirm that high levels of
reading, writing and numeracy are the most practical and relevant of skills and
that these skills are essential bases for developing the high-level vocational
skills and knowledge required in South Africa. The focus of this programme will
be to improve the resources of our poorest schools, including access to
libraries and books in order to improve the literacy and numeracy levels of our
learners. The first step will be the provision of 100 fiction books to all
Quintile 1 and 2 primary schools in the nodal areas. This year we will
strengthen our support to districts with regard to learner attainment and
teacher support.

With respect to early childhood development, government is currently
implementing Grade R for approximately 400,000 learners in both schools and
community-based sites. The Department of Education is working towards reaching
the target of one million learners by 2010. The Social cluster has approved an
integrated plan for the implementation of the skills programmes for early
childhood development practitioners in line with the Expanded Public Works
Programme (EPWP).

This year we will increase the number of Dinaledi schools (which specialise in
maths and science) from 102 to 400, and to 529 by January 2007. Over the next
three years we will increase them to one thousand. The aim is to double the
number of learners passing higher grade maths and science in Grade 12 by 2008
through targeted interventions and investment. The Department of Education aims
to ensure that the education sector offers programmes that address the skills
needs of our country. The new curricula and programmes developed by the
Department of Education have been modernised and made more relevant and
appropriate to prepare learners for the workplace.

The introduction of no-fee schools for poor learners will ensure greater access
to schools and thus to the literacy and numeracy skills that form the basis of
meeting the skills challenge in the country.

Further and higher education

Government has allocated R1.9 billion over the medium term for the
recapitalisation of further education and training (FET) colleges. The re-
capitalisation of these colleges will ensure that they become attractive first
choice options for more young learners to enrol in quality programmes that meet
the needs of the economy. As a result of a study of skills shortages, programmes
to address needs in civil engineering construction; information technology;
financial management; marketing; tourism; manufacturing and assembly;
fabrication and extraction; primary agriculture and manufacturing and assembly
have been developed and will be offered at FET colleges from 2007.

The restructuring of the higher education landscape is proceeding relatively
smoothly and within the agreed time frames. Nine of the 10 proposed mergers have
already taken place, giving rise to new institutions. The restructuring has
resulted in a new higher education institutional landscape ready to meet the
high level skills needs of the country. The already existing foundation
programmes in critical skills areas at universities and higher education will be
used to promote expansion in engineering and mathematical sciences. The
possibility of full service bursaries to recruit more teachers in scarce skills
areas is being explored.

The government, through the National Student Financial Scheme (NFSAS), plays an
important role in enabling large numbers of academically able but financially
needy students to access higher education annually. This year, over 1.3 billion
rand will be available for loans and bursaries through the NFSAS.

A coherent response to skills development

All of the items related to skills development in the 2005 government programme
of action were either completed or enjoyed significant progress. Some of the
highlights include:

* The successful launch of a revised National Skills Development Strategy (NSDS)
with a projected R5 billion per year levy funding mechanism.
* A successful Employment and Skills Development Lead Employer pilot project
that includes FET Colleges is scheduled to be completed by September 2006. Thus
far 7,856 learners are participating in the pilot programmes,
* The learnership and apprenticeship programmes have grown from strength to
strength with a 155,460 employed and unemployed learners enrolled by the end of
March 2005.
* The Sector Education and Training Authority (SETA) system was successfully re-
established when four SETAs were merged. A total of 23 SETAs are now fully
operational
* The sector skills plans for all 23 sectors of the economy were extensively
reviewed and re-aligned to the revised NSDS 2005-2010

The adjusted NSDS 2005-2010 was launched in March 2005. This revised strategy is
a comprehensive framework, which can be applied in a variety of ways to develop
skills for both employed and unemployed. In the past SETAs were accused of being
insensitive to needs of the economy and the public. To remedy this, one of the
most significant changes in the current strategy relates to SETAs broadening
their support of learners in learnerships, apprenticeships, internships,
bursaries, workplace experiential learning and unit standards based skills
programmes.

There have been numerous projects that have required close cooperation between
the Department of Labour and other departments involved in skills development.
An amount of R421 million was allocated for training of unemployed people
through our provincial offices in projects linked to housing, agriculture, road
construction, and working for water in 2005. By the end of December 2005 about
80,000 had completed training in these programmes.

During the next financial year, we will intensify our focus on the
implementation of the second year of our NSDS 2005-2010 as well as the
development of a state of the art, fully integrated Employment Services System.
Vital to the implementation of these two key projects will be the link to the
ASGISA. A detailed analysis of the skills requirements analysis for each ASGISA
project has already been embarked upon.

An estimated 108 ASGISA projects have been identified and the skills development
needs of each project will be mapped against clusters of SETAs and other
stakeholders or role players.

The Employment Services System will be implemented this year to allow the
government to have a direct handle on all labour market information such as the
existing vacancies, the numbers of people with qualifications in the various
occupations, their location, matching work seekers with vacancies on line and so
on.

An important feature of the Employment Services System will be the opportunity
for every public and private sector organisation to list on the system every
single employment or learning opportunity that is available.

Another key feature of the Employment Services System lies in its integrated
design that will ensure that a single registration point is used for
organisation or citizen registration. This integrated design will be further
enhanced by direct linkages between the Employment Services System and other
critical human resource based database systems such at Home Affairs, Education,
South African Revenue Service and Statistics South Africa.

Umsobomvu Youth Fund

Since 2005, the Umsobomvu Youth Fund has supported young people to access skills
training programmes at selected FET Colleges. In addition to support for skills
training, the Umsobomvu Youth Fund has supported the establishment of Youth
Advisory Centres at selected FET Colleges. By December 2005, there were 17 such
points located at FET colleges.

Promotion of science and technology

The Department of Science and Technology has recorded a number of significant
achievements as a result of its investment in the country's science and
technology skills base.

The department's efforts in space science have focused on developing the region
as a hub for astronomy and space research and development. Through the Astronomy
Geographical Advantage Programme (AGAP), South Africa continues to promote high
technology investment in space science to ensure that local researchers and
students are able to participate at the cutting edge of international astronomy.
A key result of this was the launch last November of the Southern African Large
Telescope (SALT).

Related to the country's bid to host the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), a bursary
programme has provided the first 12 postgraduate recipients with funding in the
2004/05 financial year. A further 11 recipients have been identified for 2006.
This programme is now being extended to South Africa's partners in the bid -
Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique and Namibia.

The South African Research Chairs Initiative is a strategic national structural
intervention towards the creation of a coherent and national research and
innovation system. The initiative is aimed at attracting and retaining qualified
researchers to the higher education sector in order to reverse the country's
dramatic decline in research outputs and capacity at publicly funded
institutions. It is envisaged that this programme, which has already been
allocated R200 million, will produce 210 research chairs by 2010 with the
potential to develop targeted research capacity.

Healthy mind in a healthy body

Athletes and teams that will be participating in the Commonwealth Games to be
held in Melbourne, Australia in March 2006 have commenced training under the
National Academy Programme. The National Academy Programme has contributed to
the successes of our athletes and teams that participated in the Olympic and
Paralympic Games of 2004 as well as in the Commonwealth Youth Games in Australia
during the same year. Increased investment in the Siyadlala Mass Participation
Programme (MPP) will provide more access to sport and recreation activities by
large numbers of people who have not previously enjoyed such access. The
programme is intended to inculcate a healthy lifestyle among the youth and
divert their energies away from anti-social behaviour. The Academy will expand
its activities to include support to the South African Football Association
(SAFA) to prepare a competitive team for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

South Africa's progress in preparing for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in all its
facets will continue to feature prominently in the run-up to the event. The
ministry of sport and recreation has been piloting and pioneering planning and
commencement of construction of 2010 FIFA World Cup venues. This will provide
many opportunities for communities and institutions to develop and offer
respectively a range of necessary skills, not only in construction related
industry but also in tourism, marketing and other areas. Our government has
already allocated R242 million towards planning for this infrastructure
provisioning. We are on track with building a lasting legacy from hosting the
2010 World Cup.

The Community Mass Participation Programme programme has been extended from 60
hubs in 2004 to 131 hubs in 2005. Presently, the main impact on the communities
concerned is related to increased levels of activity, especially amongst the
young in the communities concerned. The project has also contributed to job
creation through the recruitment and training of unemployed youth to run the
programme. They are being paid a small stipend and several have been recruited
into more permanent jobs based on the skills that they have developed.

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