Paul Janisch

Transformayshin (1) and racism - almost inseparable

Transformayshin (trænz fɔr maj ʃi jɪn) (n).  An act that purports to change the state of a situation but gets bogged down in political ideology and results in no change whatsoever (in spite of the private sector's best intentions).  

What a strange country South Africa is. We need racism (white racism) so that the free press (mostly white journalists) can report on something that is not the disaster that is the aNc government. Racists are naturally anti-transformation.  Anti-Transformayshin is more extreme - racists use objective criteria to object to crony capitalism and illegal activities that are the cornerstone of Transformayshin.  Transformayshin is different to transformation - the latter seeks a change in a state that should benefit a wide number of people.  Transformayshin is a term used when "counter-revolutionary forces" are opposed to a system that is at the same time illegal and arbitrary.  Think about (I know what you got up to this weekend) dud miyeni.  Our dud is one hell of a player.  She was on 702 once stating that she would never allow Transformayshin to be compromised (by the way - I have stopped listening to 702 completely and will continue not listening whilst they have that bigot youseewhatadoosiam mcmoron on their station).  You have to read this because it's really entertaining.

Miyeni says she's being targeted because she wants a lot more than four percent of SAA's R24 billion procurement spend to go to 50 percent black-owned companies.

"Things were quite smooth, but all of a sudden, because we're focusing on transformation I'm attacked left right and centre. I'm probably paying a price for being black, or being a woman - I don't know."

Miyeni says she can take the pain.

"When you lead you have to take the heat, that's what I am doing and I am doing it for South Africa."

Don't you love the less than subtle racism jab.  Transformayshin cannot operate without an allegation of racism. 

As it turns out dud had very little interest in transformation - she wanted to divert the public's attention from the zuma-endorsed Transformayshin policy of looting a lot of money from SAA (and the economy).  If you are inclined then read this Lily Gosam story to understand how myopic dud's transformation agenda was - it was more Transformayshin than anything else.  

That's in the name of looting.  Then you get Transformayshin which is used as a tool against those who complain about policy uncertainty and unfairness.  Once again we return to the air industry.  A spat has developed between Swissport and the Airports Company of South Africa.  The desperate Swissport has gone to court to ask for clarity over whether ACSA can now insist that baggage handlers be 51% black owned.  

An international spat is brewing over the country’s black economic empowerment laws as Swiss-owned baggage handler Swissport takes on the state-owned Airports Company South Africa (Acsa) over black shareholding requirements for a ground-handling tender.

Swissport CEO Peter Kohl, in an affidavit filed with the South Gauteng High Court last month, requested that the court review, correct or set aside Acsa’s invitation for contractor proposals for licences to provide ground-handling services at the company’s airports, which include OR Tambo and Cape Town international airports.

Kohl said a black ownership clause in the invitation was one of the main issues Swissport had with the procurement process. The clause stipulates that bidders commit to 51% black ownership at the first anniversary of the licence agreement, which must be maintained for the duration of the licence.

He said Swissport’s parent company would prefer not to increase the company’s broad-based black economic empowerment (B-BBEE) ownership to 51%, as per the invitation’s requirement, because the requirement had been unlawfully imposed.

Swissport operates in SA with 51% majority holding, with the balance of the shares held by empowerment partner Clidet. While it waits for the outcome of the court process, Swissport has submitted a bid according to the black ownership clause.

“Acsa has presented Swissport with little choice: if Swissport refrains from bidding or if Swissport submits a noncompliant bid then its business operations in SA will come to an end,” Kohl said.

The mere fact that Swissport went to court has raised the hackles of the Transformayshinists.  "This is transformation we are talking about," the Transformayshinists scream.  Airports Company South Africa (Acsa) chief executive officer (CEO) Bongani Maseko told PowerFM that the company has to be seen to be playing a role in the transformation process.

He says Swissport does not seem to be part of the South African agenda as a trading partner of more 20 years who is not willing to walk the transformation journey with Acsa. He concluded by saying that Acas’s trading partners must respect the company’s transformation imperatives.

The issue that the recipients of state arbitrariness struggle with is not transformation per se.  It's the policy uncertainty.  And this is a feature of this government.  They use platitudes like - we've given you 24 years to transform, or as these journalists so wrote

All suppliers have had perhaps as many as 24 years to come to terms with what real transformation means

But have you given 24 years of policies that actually spell out what transformation means.  You've been very clear about Transformayshin.  But no one knows what transformation means.  This simple headline above means that 51% black ownership is REAL transformation.  Really?  What about performance against a code or a charter? But we have a history here.  Does anyone recall jungle jim's response to Reuel Khoza six years ago when Khoza (a black man) had the gall to tell the zuma government that Nedbank had no faith in them.  

Transformayshin is the enemy of transformation.  It is a narrow agenda that would rather kill an economy than look at objective measures to ensure that the economy and people benefit.  It thrives on policy uncertainty and lives for crony capitalism.  Anti-Transformayshinists could well be the saviour of economic and social transformation in this country.

However this sentiment comes from an anti-Transformayshinist - who by his race and gender must also be anti-transformation.

 

Zulu group accuses South African Indians of racism

DURBAN: A Zulupressure group has called forSouth African Indians to be excluded from transformation processes, citing "overt racism" towards black South Africans from the time that  Mahatma Gandhi was in the country.

But both the provincial government and the Indian community have dismissed the suggestions.

Mazibuye African Forum, claiming to advocate socio-economic justice for indigenous Africans in South Africa, particularly in KwaZulu-Natal province, was reacting to a decision by the provincial government to erect a statue in Durban to commemorate the arrival of the first Indians in 1860 as indentured labourers for sugar cane farms.

"We have and are still calling for the Indians to be completely excluded from Black Economic Empowerment, Affirmative Action as well as Employment Equity unconditionally, with immediate effect and reiterate that their classification with Africans as a previously disadvantaged group is not only counter-productive but counter-revolutionary as well," Mazibuye chairman Zweli Sangweni said in a statement.

"Indians have been overtly racist towards Africans from the time they were brought in South Africa by the British Imperial Government," Sangweni said.

via timesofindia.indiatimes.com

This wasn't picked up by the local press.  Only in the province where Zuma is induna.

We can happily ignore this press release, but if you are a Facebookworm then you can look at their bullshit schpiel

It is cos I is black - the final word

Ntsele told the newspaper opposition parties had an agenda against black businessmen and that the website's cost was fair.

via www.moneyweb.co.za

Oh poor me, they're only picking on me because I'm black.  You'll need to read the whole article to empathise with Mr Ntsele.

FASSETs of society stand to benefit

This was forwarded onto me. It is so racist that it's almost unbelievable and it's bizarre that it hasn't gone viral. It will now.

I spoke to the FASSET SETA and the policy was confirmed. When questioned as to the legality of this policy I was told that the board has the mandate to promote transformation and that this was within the mandate. You can register learnerships for any other race group – but they won't give you your SDL back (this is a naïve assessment of the situation but it captures the essense).

From: Lauren Derman [mailto:Lauren.Derman@fasset.org.za]
Sent: 07 November 2012 09:23 PM
To: Subject: RE: Learnership Grant Application Concern

The Fasset Board decided again this year to extend the discretionary grants to only African people. The rationale for this decision, which was deliberated at length by the Board, was that the Fasset sector overall was over-represented in terms of Indian (and White) people and adequately represented in terms of Coloured people.

The employment and training of African people in the sector was under-represented as compared to the other population groups, which is why the Board decided to focus on this group in terms of discretionary funding such as the Learnership Cash Grant, Strategic Cash Grant and NSFAS Grant.

The Board took into account objections to this decision, however believed that in order to encourage the uptake of African people, a clear and bold incentive was needed.

Such learners will be available for you through the Setas development projects, which aim to train up African people to make them work-ready and able to enter jobs, internships or employment. In addition, the Seta's lifelong learning programme is continuing and is open to all employees working for firms registered with Fasset. All learners are still eligible for the tax deduction to be claimed from SARS.

I would encourage you to continue to submit your Mandatory Grant and comment on the Sector Skills Plan, where the strategy is outlined. Your comments are valid, however they have unfortunately been received too late for the 2013/2014 implementation period to make changes to the strategy.

All feedback provided is presented to the Board, and as I indicated there will be a re-assessment of this Fasset strategy at the Board meeting in August 2013.

Best wishes and thank you for taking the time to engage with the Seta on this issue,

Lauren Derman

Director of Skills Planning

Building 3, Ground Floor, 299 Pendoring Road, Blackheath

PO Box 6801, Cresta, 2118

Phone: (011) 476 8570

Fax: (011) 476 5756

Call Centre: 086 101 0001

Fasset Fraud Hotline: 0800 205 054

Website: www.fasset.org.za

Email: lauren.derman@fasset.org.za

 

Should this not be – make the future for only Africans count?

Mazwai is seduced by Blade's blunt statistics

Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande told a breakfast meeting that 55% of blacks who graduated from Stellenbosch University were unlikely to get a job in the first year after graduation, while the figure for whites is 12%. For Wits University, 29% of its black graduates had a slim chance of getting a job a year after leaving university, while the figure for white graduates was 7%.

These figures provide just a glimmer of the reality that racism has simply gone underground.

via www.bdlive.co.za

Strange that a person like Thami Mazwai, who I have the highest respect for, would be blinded by the missing logic in Blunt Nzimande's statement.  It's likely that the statistics themselves hide the reality.  But if I'm wrong at least I offered a little clarity.

We'll go back to the Economically Active Population - the latest statistics can be found off StatSA.  The statistics are too difficult to read through but I'll give a round about estimate of what they are per race group.

African - 85%

White - 5%

Coloured - 5%

Indian - 5%

Let's say that the EAP mirrors the graduates at all universities in South Africa (Mazwai is remiss by not mentioning something as concrete as this), if there are 100 graduates then 85 would be African, 5 white etc.  This means that at Stellenbosch 38 and a quarter black graduates are likely to get jobs, 4.4 whites on the other hand will get jobs.  I'd say the Africans are winning hands down here.  You can follow the same logic for Wits.

I don't see any racism here at all (other than from Blunt) - all I see is another politician who has found he has to become race obsessed because the alliance he represents has to blame its failures on something.  Shades of Hitler.

 

Ferial, the spear and Verwoerd's idol - jungle jim

I'll do the same.  I love the fact that the ANC boycott against City Press didn't work.  We now need to watch the advertising in this publication, can the dominant party (I'd love to say ruling party but they clearly aren't that)  separate itself from its governmental role and ban all government advertising on City Press.

So said Ferial Haffajee on the City Press website this morning.

The Spear is down. Out of care and as an olive branch to play a small role in helping turn around a tough moment, I have decided to take down the image.

Another interesting article in the papers this weekend were on the über-racist jungle jim. The best one spoke of how his contract as Government Communication and Information Service CEO is not going to be renewed. But the hard-hitting article came from Jonathan Jansen in the Mail and Guardian.

Anyone who thinks that Jimmy Manyi, after his comments about coloured people, is simply an aberration on the post-apartheid landscape is hugely mistaken. Manyi, like Butana Komphela, is merely saying the kinds of outrageous things that many of his ilk among the powerful (and the restless, economically disen­franchised and powerless) think but lack the courage to say openly about the people they dub "coloured".

Manyi is a perfect product of our racist past: he categorises humanity into the four racial boxes of apartheid, assigns biological and social essences to the people in each of them and then damns them accordingly. I once sat on a panel with this man discussing affirmative action and employment equity, and I was astounded by his lack of reflection, his incapacity for generosity and the racial and ethnic determinism that shapes his thinking.

The fact that the man is protected by so-called black (read "racial African") lobbies and receives a light, laughing tap on the wrist from powerful political parties tells you that Manyi-type thinking enjoys considerable support among the elites. That he holds positions of influence makes the man's thinking dangerous in the extreme. What he spewed out and now receives support for is no laughing matter. This is precisely the kind of racist discourse about others—"there are too many of them"—that preceded the ethnic genocide in Rwanda. It is the language of scapegoating, and our skins should crawl when faced with this kind of provocation.

I believe that this view that is taken by jungle jim is necessary for the ANC's survival. It is rapidly realising that its struggle credentials have run out of steam and now must blame whites and other minorities for its own failings. Something that Hitler and Mugabe were particularly competent at doing. Unless the ANC catches a swift wake-up it will be recorded in the history books as another African failure along with Mobutu Sese Seko, Mugabe et al.

More on this in an upcoming post.

 

Riding shotgun with Transnet – nice day for a white wedding

At first I didn't pay much attention to this FM article.

The Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa) has said it will force its winning bidder to accept a BEE partner chosen by the agency. It says such a measure would help it to prevent politically connected empowerment partners from benefiting from infrastructure development. The policy is mooted in place of the company selecting its own BEE partner, as has been the practice.

This is nothing new to parastatals. I've twice done work for a major power supplier and have been told that 30% of the business must be allocated to a nominated black business in a similar field. In one case the black business owners didn't even bother to come and meet us or find out what the project was about. They placed two contractors on the job who became our responsibility. The contractors were eager, capable and a pleasure to work with but it's very likely that they were paid a miniscule amount for their efforts. Their employers, however got paid very well for nothing. Admittedly we were completely remiss for not insisting that they do get involved.

There is a sort of mutually assured destruction in this relationship – the primary contractor is forced into this relationship and cannot be sure that the other party will perform and so they will do all the work, even at a discounted rate, without the involvement of the other party. They won't complain to the major power utility about this relationship for fear that they do not get any work from said utility in future. And the smaller partner is aware of this.

Whether this partnering results in a shotgun wedding or not is of little consequence to me (read the article to get the context). I would like to postulate a possible rationale behind this policy. This is pure speculation but fits in comfortably with my love of conspiracy theories. The heroes of my theory are the Black Business Council. A body that commands such respect and stature that they find it unnecessary to have even a Facebook page. Some have speculated that this organisation is racist, and others welcome it. I believe that it has arisen as a vehicle for a series of suspects (usual or otherwise) to grab a slice of the private sector because the public sector pie is not quite what it was.

There is a challenge facing our BBC heroes in getting access to the private sector's benevolence Unfortunately they have made it very clear where they stand and who they support. The Reuel Khoza saga (who should be awarded the highest accolade South Africa can award a citizen) allowed the BBC to take a different tack to other organisations. Their leader (I'm sorry, I meant spokesman) Sandile Zungu made the following statement

The spokesman for the BBC, Sandile Zungu, said the council was not convinced of the wisdom of choosing to use the medium of the Nedbank annual report, a publicly-listed company, to launch a full frontal assault on political leadership, in government or elsewhere. "We believe that the grave reservations that Nedbank may harbour about how our country is led, could have been raised more constructively in its regular engagements with the Registrar of Banks and Treasury, and perhaps through the associations that it is ultimately affiliated to," Zungu said.

In other words the BBC is really saying that business should really be polite about our inept government who squanders their tax money on everything but the welfare of South Africans. You can't really blame Zungrabber for saying this – he is known to be really tight with the über-married one; he's not going to go against his meal ticket. But in so doing it is possible that the private sector is not going to embrace the BBC that overtly. So how do you go about ensuring that you carry on hogging the honeypot? Simple – you get your parastatal buddies to force you onto winning bidders for tenders.

It's almost too simple.

As a postscript – I wonder what is going to happen to Zungrabber once showerhead is no longer head honcho of the great party of the struggle (but little else).

Come on Billy – sing us to sleep 

The race is on - does anyone really need to win?

Not to flog a dead horse - but this is how race was determined in the heady days of apartheid.  This was taken from Constitionally Speaking  - which everyone should subscribe to.

 The Population Registration Act 30 of 1950 required every South African to be classified in terms of race and these apartheid race categories included “african”, “white”, “coloured”, “other coloured” or “indian”.
The Act was amended often to try and make it more difficult to reclassify anyone as “white”, but the definitions used at one time included the following:
Although this Act was finally abolished in 1991,

• A white person is one who is in appearance obviously white — and not generally accepted as Coloured – or who is generally accepted as White – and is not obviously Non-White, provided that a person shall not be classified as a White person if one of his natural parents has been classified as a Coloured person or a Bantu…”
• “A Bantu is a person who is, or is generally accepted as, a member of any aboriginal race or tribe of Africa…”
• “A Coloured is a person who is not a White person or a Bantu…”

The Act was finally abolished in 1991.

And seeing that race is now VERY relevant we can only hope that level headed people like Trevor Manuel are able to keep our heads down and focus on the ultimate goal - and that has to be empowerment of the people.  This is an excerpt from Trevor's letter to jungle jim

As a consequence of your behaviour, people like me  ‐ in the ANC and in government, are being asked to explain what was in the mind of the drafters of the amendments to the Employment Equity Act. We were present at the point of the debate of the first Employment Equity Bill; we expressed a complete comfort with the assignment of 'designated groups' to include “black people” which means "Africans, Coloureds and Indians." because it served as a representation of our constitutionality and as the fruits of our struggle. When in your capacity as Chairperson of the Employment Equity Commission you made strange utterances that sought to carve away at the basic premise of the Employment Equity Act, we should have been more vigilant. The just and constitutionally obligated provisions for redress are not and can never be an excuse to perpetuate racism.