MEDIA RELEASE FROM THE PRESIDENT’S OFFICE    2009/01/29        

Nationalize the mines? Expropriation of the mines...?

It’s a smokescreen.

We have  read with interest the reports of the proposed nationalization (expropriation) of our mines.

Consider the timing of this ‘debate’? So far the tenure of president Zuma has been marred by strike after strike, protests on service delivery, daily exposes of corruption with the ranks, there is disintegration of infrastructure within the municipalities, sniping at the judiciary but, hey, let’s take over the mines –  nationalize them – and appease the masses with the promise of ‘shared’  wealth. 

South Africans of colour were long economically enslaved.  President Mandela long ago took a stance that nationalizing the mines could not enhance our cause.  Nationalizing our mines might enrich a select few, but benefit the masses?  I think not. 

Currently the mining industry employs some one million people... Metro Rail train drivers are a handful…  Imagine.  Today, the poorest of our working masses are afflicted by the Metro Rail strike which seems to be in deadlock. How then does the ruling party propose to manage the mines? It would quite simply bring our economy to its knees....  If it were real.

Would the ruling party take such a risky route?  Mantashe says not and hastens to reassure it is ‘not on the agenda’   And I would say it is a pretty safe bet it is not. But such talk does serve to erect a smoke-screen,  we might turn our attention from striking train drivers and other woes, we will forget that people are relieving themselves in full view of the public eye, and we will – if we are fooled – begin to debate the pros and cons of nationalization.

Are there cons?  There must be.  The Minister of Public Enterprises  Geoff Doidge himself is talking of “divesting the Government of  some of the non-profit-making SOE’s  (State Owned Enterprises)  ...  So, it seems the ruling party is at sixes and sevens.

COPE is not fooled.  The question begs asking - what is behind all this braying about “nationalization?”  Let’s see. Eskom is already preparing excuses (intriguingly related to mining) for future problems, offering ‘problems of coal supply’, there is student riots brewing for funding for tertiary education needs, estimated at some R2.8bn, the COPE phones are flooded with calls about the R1.6 bn hi-jacked from Service Providers of that most spectacular of failures, the  Gauteng Shared Services (GSSC)  yet if the ANCYL smokescreen were to work, the ANCYL  would have the citizens of SA and Opposition sitting in lofty debate about “mines nationalization”, conveniently forgetting the real issues facing our citizens,  such as their demands for the most basic of services.

We need to roll up our sleeves and begin with the basics.  Roads need repair, civil servants need to be valued, schools need to be built and re-built.  Health needs an overhaul.  COPE understands that this means money, prosperity brings money. I understand all too well how international disinvestment in South Africa helped our cause in bringing the Apartheid regime to its knees.   I am a realist and humbled enough to know that the disinvestment that would follow the nationalization of mines alone would deal a mighty  blow to the people we least want to hurt, our own citizens. 

Just as disinvestment dealt a mortal blow to the Apartheid regime, so too could it wound the people of  our young democracy. The powers in the ruling party know this all too well, and as evidenced by the market’s stability, it would seem that the thinkers amongst us are seeing through the smokescreen.  

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MOSIUOA LEKOTA

PRESIDENT

For more information please contact Phillip Dexter on 082 453 4088

Written by :

Lerato Modisane