“The time for Africa has come. It has arrived … Ke nako!” With these words President Jacob Zuma officially declared the 2010 World Cup open. In the meantime, our cities have been spruced up, the Gautrain is up and running and the homeless bundled off the streets to God knows where.
While some have argued that an event of this magnitude will bring prosperity to our country, others are less optimistic.
They believe that the money could have been better spent on servicing the needs of the poor, reducing social inequality and improving social services such as schools, hospitals, housing and transport.
However, the voices of these critics have been silenced not so much by the blaring vuvuzelas, but by the commercial media, bourgeois politicians and their well-to-do allies, who stand to benefit most from Fifa’s premier event.
Even so, Cosatu sent a message of goodwill to our national team.
Parliament – Bills
Parliament is in recess and MPs are expected to go back to their constituencies from June 7-July 16. The following Bills, among others, are currently before Parliament:
• Bill 06 – Protection of Information Bill (B6-2010).
• Bill 10 – South African Reserve Bank Amendment Bill (B10-2010).
Protection of Information Bill
(B6-2010)
Vuyo Ninzi, the legal co-ordinator at Cosatu’s parliamentary office, says that while the Bill is welcome and aims to repeal the Protection of Information Act 84 of 1982, the state still has too much power to decide what constitutes confidential, classified, secret and top secret information.
According to Ninzi, the Bill could prejudice trade unions and their members, and prevent them from disclosing information that the state considers classified.
Ninzi is compiling a more extensive review of the Bill and its implications for labour. In the meantime, he has put together a short piece on the Bill to assist our readers (See Box).
South African Reserve Bank Amendment Bill (B10-2010)
The South African Reserve Bank Amendment Bill (B10-2010) came under scrutiny when the union’s economic task team met to consider a range of issues that are likely to affect our members.
Prakashnee Govender, Cosatu’s parliamentary co-ordinator, and Professor Chris Malikane, political economist from Wits University, shed light on the role of the Reserve Bank as provided for in the Constitution, and helped unpack some of the tricky questions associated with the bank’s mandate and its constitutionally enshrined independence.
Govender dealt with some of the legislative and structural aspects of the bank and raised a number of concerns about its ownership and shareholding (Govender, 2010: Slide 9: legislative and structural considerations of the South African Reserve Bank presented to Numsa’s economic task team, June 7 2010).
He discussed the “myth … that private shareholding will serve objectives of promoting the accountability and independence of the bank”, adding that there was a need for the discussion of the mechanics of nationalisation, with the main issue being what compensation should be paid to shareholders, if any.
After Malikane’s input on policy and the nationalisation of the Reserve Bank, it was clear that little would be gained by pursuing discussions with the bank, as happened in 2009 when Numsa and Cosatu met its governor in an attempt to get it to lower interest rates and abandon the use of inflation targeting.
Malikane argued that Cosatu should confront the Treasury directly on the monetary and macro-economic policies that have bedevilled the country since the adoption of Gear in 1996.
Source
Numsa News No 2