Ubuntu and the 2007 Budget

On Wednesday 21 February, our Minister of Finance, Trevor Manuel, delivered his 2007 Budget Speech. He chose as his theme the important idea fundamental to the vision of our movement for the building of a people-centred society, contained in the words "Human life has equal worth".

In this context he quoted the British writer, Will Hutton, who wrote: "The foundation of human association is the idea that human life has equal worth and human beings are equally entitled to political, economic and social rights which allow them to choose a life they have reason to live."

He went on to say: "The idea, that human life has equal worth, and that this is the core value that unites us, invites us to ask whether we have done enough to give practical effect in South Africa today to our shared humanity. Have we acted in a manner that shows that human life has equal worth? Or do we still live in a society where the shadow of history dominates over the opportunities of an open society...

"The 2007 Budget strives to accelerate economic growth and work opportunities, modernise our public services and infrastructure and fight poverty and inequality, because we have a shared pledge to work together in action. We do this, consciously, as a choice of this government because without a powerful countervailing force, the shadow of history will dictate opportunities, entitlements and outcomes."

The Budget Speech completes the process of the presentation to the country of three inter-connected major statements that, since 1995, have been delivered at the beginning of the year, except on national election years. These are the January 8th Statement of the National Executive Committee of the ANC, the State of the Nation Address, and the Budget Speech.

Together these statements seek to give a clear picture to the nation about what our movement intends to do in the short to medium term to meet its commitment to persist in its pursuit of the goal of a better life for all our people. In this context, throughout our years of liberation, we have emphasised the central importance of the struggle to defeat poverty and underdevelopment.

To emphasise this, the ANC National Executive Committee designated 2007 as "The Year to Intensify the Struggle against Poverty as we Advance in Unity towards 2012 - Phambili". The January 8th Statement, which emphasised that we must further intensify the offensive against poverty in the next five years, leading to the Centenary of the ANC in 2012, said: "Clearly, the guiding principle of (our) roadmap must continue to be to move forward decisively to eradicate poverty and all other elements of the legacy of colonialism and apartheid...

"The key questions that we have to answer are how much impact have we made as a movement in changing the lives of the people and advancing the ANC's strategic objectives we outlined as we acceded to power; and what it is that we need to do in the last five years before our centenary to intensify and accelerate our work to push back the frontiers of poverty.

"In 2004, we received a clear mandate to lead the country to lift our economy to a higher growth trajectory, and position it more effectively to create work and push back the frontiers of poverty. In 2007, we must work even harder, together, further to implement this mandate."

Consistent with this, in the State of the Nation Address we said: "None of the great social problems we have to solve is capable of resolution outside the context of the creation of jobs and the alleviation and eradication of poverty, and therefore the struggle to eradicate poverty has been and will continue to be a central part of the national effort to build the new South Africa."

The Budget occupies a critical place among the major annual statements we have mentioned because it allocates public sector resources to address the objectives communicated in the January 8th and the State of the Nation Addresses. It also impacts on how the private sector and civil society respond to our national challenges. It is therefore always important to understand the broad policy framework that informs any Budget.

In this regard, the 2007 Budget Review, which is tabled in Parliament together with the Budget Speech and the Estimates of National Expenditure, says:

"Government's medium-term strategic framework defines the main priorities over the 2004-2009 period. It seeks to enhance the social and economic welfare of all South Africans as reflected in the following key objectives:

• accelerating the pace of economic growth, and the rate of investment in productive capacity;
• advancing participation of the marginalised in economic activity through expanded job creation and the promotion of sustainable livelihoods;
• maintaining and expanding a progressive social security net, alongside investment in community services and human development;
• improving the capacity and effectiveness of the state, including combating crime and promoting service-oriented public administration; and,
• building regional and international partnerships for growth and development."

The 2007/8 Budget seeks precisely to address these strategic challenges. As the Budget Review says correctly, together these objectives constitute an important part of our response to the task to enhance the social and economic welfare of all South Africans - to achieve the goal of a better life for all. They respond to the fundamental value system of Ubuntu stated by Finance Minister Trevor Manuel in the words - "Human life has equal worth."

The central task of the national democratic revolution (NDR) is to construct a people-centred society that will, in practice, demonstrate that it values every human being on an equal basis, determined that each should enjoy a life of dignity, regardless of race, colour, gender, age or belief. All the Budgets approved by our democratic Parliaments since 1994, including the 2007/8 Budget, have been focused exactly on the attainment of this objective.

The more than 300 years of colonialism and apartheid that are part of our history left us with a deeply entrenched legacy that could not but help to dictate what our movement and democratic South Africa would have to do to respond to the imperative to develop our country according to the Ubuntu precept that "human life has equal worth".

Democratic South Africa inherited a difficult legacy that included:

• widespread and deeply entrenched poverty, underpinned by high levels of unemployment largely affecting unskilled black people with low levels of education;
• gross imbalances in the distribution of wealth, income and opportunity along the structural fault lines of race, gender and geographic space;
• an economy in crisis, incapable of achieving significant growth, competing successfully in the global markets, and creating new jobs, functioning in the context of an extremely unhealthy macro-economic framework;
• a society with a long history of violence against the person, visited upon communities by the state and criminals, which had also created a permissive atmosphere that encouraged individuals to resort to violence to settle personal disputes;
• a situation in which as a result of the breakdown of the social fabric, the traditional value system of Ubuntu had been greatly eroded, undermining social adherence to such Ubuntu values and practices as the protection of children, respect for the elderly, respect for human life, and human solidarity, which fed into and encouraged high crime rates;
• the existence of a state machinery constructed to serve a minority of the population as well as control and repress the majority, incapable of playing a significant role as an instrument for the all-round development of society as a whole;
• a system of public finances structurally designed to serve the purposes of a discriminatory and repressive state machinery; and,
• a country that had to regain its place as a worthy citizen, within the African and global community of nations, having endured a long period of international isolation occasioned especially by the perpetration of the apartheid crime against humanity.

Ever since the masses of our people voted our movement into power in 1994, our government has sought to address the entirety of this legacy of colonialism and apartheid, consistent with the fundamental goal of the national democratic revolution to build a people-centred, democratic, peaceful, non-racial, non-sexist and prosperous society that inspires every citizen actually to experience the reality that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white.

Accordingly, any analysis of our public finances, including our Budgets from 1994 to date, would show that we have never wavered from the pursuit of the central goal of the NDR. In this regard, the Minister of Finance once again drew attention to the benefits our country continues to derive from the implementation of the decision in the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) policy document that our government must ensure that we grow and develop our economy within the context of the correct macro-economic balances. He said:

"Debt interest costs continue to fall as a share of GDP and are set to reach 2.1% by 2010. Madame Speaker, the savings on interest that we have seen since 2001 provides an additional R33 billion a year to spend on services and infrastructure, money that we would not have had if we kept on borrowing at the level it was in 1994.

"In 1994, we had a choice, to expand spending by borrowing, or reprioritise while reducing dependence on debt. The choices that we have made, consciously made, provide us with the fiscal space to spend more on education, on health, on public transport. It has also provided us with the policy room to contemplate long-term reforms to our social security system that will benefit all South Africans."

Accordingly government expenditure, including in the current financial year, will increase across the board, even as we have continued to reduce the tax burden on the lower to middle income earners. This will include expenditure on all infrastructure associated with the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup. During the fiscal years 2006/7 - 2009/10 expenditure in education will increase by 11%, health by 10.5%, welfare and social security by 9.8%, housing and community development by 18.1%, police, prisons and courts by 19.9% and economic services by 14.3%.

The Budget and Budget Speech also contain a whole range of funded interventions to address the challenges of access to education, urgently needed social, science and economic skills, and increasing the number of qualified artisans which, among other things, will help us to address the challenge of unemployment.

This, of course, is accompanied by other funded interventions focused on the further expansion of our economy, as visualised in Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative (ASGISA), the Industrial Policy Framework, the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP), and other programmes, which will both increase our country's wealth and help us further to accelerate the reduction of our unemployment levels and therefore our levels of poverty.

Thus, in his Budget Speech, the Minister of Finance could say: "In concert with the task of growing the economy and creating new opportunities for work, we have been hard at work since 1994 to push back the frontiers of poverty, recognising that no people can be truly free until they have cast aside the shackles of poverty and underdevelopment."

In the January 8th Statement our National Executive Committee said: "Through our joint efforts as a nation we have built up momentum for stronger economic growth and development. But we need to act with even greater determination and focus to realise the potential of our economy to meet the needs of the poor in urban and rural areas. We need to act in unity, in a people's contract, to ensure that this progress is not only sustained, but elevated to a higher level during the course of the year.

"This places a responsibility, first and foremost, on the cadres of our movement, wherever they are deployed, to take the lead in ensuring that growth is both accelerated and shared. Our key challenge is to sustain this growth, broaden participation in the economy and extend opportunities to all, to deepen the quality of social development. Sustained and broad-based growth depends on additional progress in our industrial sector, on export growth and trade performance, and on improving education, skills and productivity...

"Government alone cannot resolve the challenges of inequality and poverty. Rather they require that we unite South Africans in a 'peoples contract to create work and fight poverty'. We must seek concerted action on our development approach, involving the whole of our society...

"And therefore in all our efforts as we advance with our mission to eradicate poverty we have to ensure continued participation of the masses of our people in the struggle against poverty...

"Now that the reviled system of apartheid has been overturned, we should continue to seek the mobilisation of the broadest range of forces in society to overcome the poverty, unemployment and underdevelopment that continue to afflict many of our people.

"As we resolved at the 2002 Stellenbosch Conference of our movement, one of our key tasks for 2007 should therefore be to continue to work to bring together as many people and groupings as possible into a common struggle to build a better life for our people..."

Our movement must indeed vigorously take up the challenge to mobilise the greatest number of our people to join the broad front for development, in keeping with our vision of a people-driven process of change.

What the media says i

Putting words into the mouth of the ANC

At the beginning of 2005, ANC TODAY published a series of articles discussing the "Sociology of the Public Discourse in South Africa". In Part IV of this series, we described an approach common in this country that involves the misrepresentation of the views of the ANC so that they - these falsified views - can easily be countered.

We said: "By making patently false allegations about the positions of the ANC, these commentators would erect 'scarecrows', posing as ANC views, and then easily knock them down."

Exactly a week ago, readers of Sowetan were treated to a variant of this approach - the misrepresentation of the views of the ANC, not so that they may be easily countered, but so that they may advance the agenda of those making these "patently false allegations" about the ANC's positions. In effect, putting words into the mouth of the ANC in the naïve hope that the ANC may be convinced to actually say them.

Those who rely on the media for information and news expect that those who write the news are able to distinguish fact from fiction, and that they have enough professional pride only to report on that which they know to be factual.

In the article in question, entitled 'Drop Mbeki and Zuma', Sowetan chooses to give credence to the claims of some anonymous ANC 'insiders', propagating a number of fabrications about the ANC and its leadership.

As if the contents of the article were not sufficiently untruthful, the banner headline on the front page leaves no doubt as to the extent of the fiction: "ANC wants Mbeki, Zuma to quit race," it declares.

The article itself claims "there are moves within the top ANC structure to stop both President Thabo Mbeki and his number two, Jacob Zuma, from running in the ANC leadership race". This, the article continues, "the ANC wants resolved before its June policy conference..."

This is an obvious example of patently false allegations about the positions of the ANC.

Nowhere, at any time, has any ANC structure taken any decision on the eligibility or otherwise of either Thabo Mbeki or Jacob Zuma for election to any position within the ANC. In fact, the matter has never even arisen in any ANC structure. It is therefore astounding for the newspaper to claim that there is an ANC position on the matter.

The ANC's position on the election of its national leadership is very clear, and has been reaffirmed by the ANC National Executive Committee (NEC) on more than one occasion in the past two years.

Although Sowetan has had a journalist present at every NEC media briefing, they appear to have forgotten this fact or, for convenience sake, disregarded it.

The truth of the matter is that the ANC's National Conference, due to be held in December, will elect the NEC, including its national officials. The procedure by which the election will take place is outlined in the ANC Constitution, and is well known to the structures and membership of the ANC. The process of nominations begins in ANC branches a few months before the Conference.

The ANC has time and again reiterated that it will attend to these matters at the appropriate time, according to established procedures, and within the organisational practices of the movement.

If the journalist had done even the most basic amount of research, they would have discovered that a decision to exclude a member in good standing from being nominated to any leadership position would be in breach of the ANC Constitution.

There are numerous other fabrications in the article itself, most emanating from the exclusive reliance on the claims of unnamed "insiders". Can these "insiders" be relied upon to provide honest and factual information? Can we trust them to tell the truth objectively, without pursuing some personal agenda of their own?

By their very nature, unnamed 'insiders' are unreliable. Information provided by anonymous sources, unless corroborated by additional evidence, should be treated with the utmost scepticism.

In this particular instance, the 'information' provided by the Sowetan's sources should be rejected out of hand. Not only are they verifiably untrue, but, in the context of the practices and traditions of the ANC, patently nonsensical.

The article says for example: "ANC strategists prefer going the 'compromise candidate' route." Anyone who has had even the faintest involvement in the ANC would be forgiven for wondering what is an 'ANC strategist'. How does one become an ANC strategist? And what does one then have to strategise about?

The truth is that there's no such thing. Anyone passing themselves off as an ANC strategist, or passing others off as such, are dishonest (or delusional).

Not content to rely on their supposedly impeccable 'inside' information, the report then goes on to claim that a statement made in tribute to the late Adelaide Tambo by former President Nelson Mandela was evidence of his support for the supposed decision to seek a "compromise candidate".

In the section of his speech to which the article alludes, Mandela said: "In these challenging times in the life of the organisation we are all called to return to those values that she represented and lived by. Her death may serve to remind all of us to strive for unity and to put the well-being of the organisation above all personal and sectarian considerations."

There is not a single person within the ANC who would not support this statement. The maintenance of the unity of the ANC is indeed one of the most important and lasting tributes we can accord to the memory of Adelaide Tambo.

To seek to use this worthy tribute to a person like Mama Tambo by a person of the stature of Nelson Mandela to pursue such a dubious objective is a shameful form of political deceit.

So why does Sowetan give credence to the claims of these "insiders", who, if indeed they exist, are prepared to present patently false allegations about the positions of the ANC? Perhaps it is because the things these insiders are saying correspond very neatly with the positions that some in Sowetan would like the ANC to take.

Sowetan is clearly pursuing its own agenda with respect to the leadership of the ANC. It was, after all, the newspaper that recently urged readers to 'vote' for a "compromise candidate" for the ANC Presidency. While that may be their right, they would surely know that it is the membership of the ANC that will ultimately decide this matter, in accordance with the democratic practices and traditions of the organisation.

Yet whatever its agenda, and whatever its motives, Sowetan should not pretend to its readers that the positions it has taken as a newspaper reflect the views of the membership of the ANC or any decisions of its structures. The ANC will resist any attempt – whether by a newspaper, an analyst, or anonymous “insiders” – to put words into the mouth of the organisation.

As the ANC National Executive Committee (NEC) said in November 2005: "The ANC and its leadership are capable of openly speaking for themselves."

What the media says II

BBC World replies to ANC TODAY

As Editor of ANC TODAY, I welcome the statement issued by BBC World on 21 February 2007 responding to the article on one of its programmes that we published in our last issue. The ANC and therefore this journal, consider it of the greatest importance that our people should always be fully empowered to participate in all processes that bear any relationship to their future through full access to all information they might need to enable them to exercise this right. Our movement and government have therefore always tried their best to respect the principle and practice of transparent and accountable public practice.

In the articles we have published, to date, we have, among other things, tried to respect the principles never to mislead our readers, as well as to respect other views. It was in this context that we published the article in our last edition headed, "Propaganda and reality: the truth as the first casualty of war", which commented on a short BBC World documentary on the incidence of crime in our country.

BBC World responded to this article in a public statement issued by the Editorial Director of BBC World, Sian Kevill. Below we reproduce this statement in full, to ensure that our readers are properly informed. The BBC World Statement, in full, says:

"Having reviewed the report by John Simpson on crime in Johannesburg, BBC World not only stands by the piece but also refutes all allegations by the ruling African National Congress of racism, as published on its website on 16 February.

"BBC World's editorial mission is to report global news accurately and impartially and our coverage reflects a wide range of opinions and points of view. The channel works within the BBC's editorial guidelines and its news broadcasts offer unmatched, in-depth analysis of breaking news and events of global importance with programmes explaining not only what is happening, but why.

"Reports on crime in BBC World are not unique to South Africa. In the last week, we've broadcast a number of pieces on gun-crime in South London. Similarly over the past six months, we've featured reports about crime from Rio and the Niger Delta. We also covered the recent racist attacks in Russia; the ongoing investigation into the Delhi killings of 15 women and children; the school shooting in Canada; and the ongoing issue of US gun sprees.

"John Simpson is one of the BBC's most senior world affairs correspondents who first visited South Africa in 1976. He has spent many years in the country both as the BBC's Southern Africa correspondent and to cover specific key news events such as the end of the apartheid regime. In a BBC career spanning more than 30 years, John has earned a reputation as one of the world's most experienced and authoritative journalists.

"South African stories regularly feature on our news and business programming as well as within documentary and feature programmes. In 2006 the BBC World news team marked the anniversary of Hector Pietersen's death and featured several positive stories as well as interviews from Soweto schools for a global season on growing up. Furthermore, following the World Cup in Germany, we reported on the economic growth taking place ahead of the 2010 tournament, to be held in South Africa.

"BBC World's World Business Report has commissioned a major series from South Africa for the last three years. Most recently the team visited in October 2006 to examine how black economic empowerment has worked.

"The flagship interview programme HARDtalk has visited South Africa several times interviewing among others Thabo Mbeki, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Helen Suzman, Barney Pityana and Makhenkesi Stofile.

"In the last two-and-a-half years, BBC World has commissioned two month-long seasons focusing on Africa. Both Africa Lives and Aspects of Africa featured a provocative range of programming and news pieces, challenging preconceptions about the vast continent and offering fascinating insights into the lives of some of its 700 million people.

"Furthermore, in May 2007, BBC World will feature a South Africa Direct week, focusing on the region in some of the channel's key weekly programmes including our technology magazine Click, its flagship sporting interview programme extratime and its business of travel programme fast:track.

"We do not accept the ANC's comments or analysis of our coverage, and will continue to cover South African news and business stories on BBC World accurately and in-depth."

COMMENT OF ANC TODAY EDITOR:

We do not wish to, and will not, question almost all the observations made by Sian Kevill on behalf of BBC World. The critical point, however, is that the article we published dealt with one documentary only, the one broadcast on 8 February 2007, advertised as a report on crime in South Africa, and not Johannesburg, as Sian Kevill claims.

We continue to insist that the documentary told a grossly distorted story both about Johannesburg and South Africa. We did not, and will not, deny that we are faced with a serious problem of crime, both in Johannesburg and the rest of South Africa. Again we insist, from our actual experience as the premier representative of the black people of South Africa, that because of its failure to present the important truths about Johannesburg that we reported, the documentary fed and was consistent with a deeply entrenched insulting stereotype of Africans that our people have lived with for many centuries. As long as the ANC remains the ruling party in our country, BBC World will always be free to report on South Africa freely, with no interference either by our government or the ANC.

We will, however, always state our view in a forthright manner, both in the negative and the positive, whenever we feel it is necessary either to criticise or applaud any BBC (or any other media) programme. The only thing we will always insist on in this regard is that we and the BBC should always interact with each other with honesty, integrity and mutual respect, always ready openly to admit our mistakes, if either one of us does make a mistake, as will inevitably happen.

ANC TODAY is now in its seventh year of publication. Our last issue represents the very first time ever that we published a critical article about any BBC report about our country. We did this because we thought that the report in question was obscenely unfair and positioned the BBC as an activist in a domestic campaign that sought to define our national agenda in a particular way, regardless of the most fundamental imperatives facing the overwhelming majority of our people, including the serious challenge of crime.

We have the greatest respect for John Simpson, and understand that it would be wrong to attribute specifically to him an assessment about our country that he would never be able to make, in his own name, unless he had spent time in South Africa today, and not yesterday, personally to understand our reality. We do indeed hope that the BBC will continue "to cover South African news and business stories on BBC World accurately and in-depth". We will continue to respect the BBC if it keeps to its word in this regard, even in the context of the occasional instances when we may publicly or privately disagree with its conclusions.

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