JOHANNESBURG – President Cyril Ramaphosa is calling on BRICS countries to embrace the fourth industrial revolution.

He was speaking during the second day of the 10th BRICS Summit.

WATCH: Heads of state address Brics summit

Russian President Vladmir Putin was the last head of state to arrive in South Africa this morning.

Ramaphosa believes the revolution will provide opportunities for emerging economies.

eNCA

ANC treasurer general Paul Mashatile says the land question is not about targeting people’s houses or private property, nor about targeting white farmers specifically.

Mashatile was addressing the Cape Town Press Club at Kelvin Grove in Newlands on Tuesday and he fielded multiple questions on the economy, land and ailing state-owned enterprises (SOEs).

The ANC top six member told the audience that the land debate was becoming distorted.

ALSO READ: No need to wait for land hearings to end, lawful expropriation can start now – Lamola

“There were people who I met earlier in the year who asked if we were going to take away their houses. I said we had no such intention. Why should we come to suburbs and take people’s houses?

“That’s not the land question, to take people’s houses and private property.”

When asked if the ANC would target white-owned farms, Mashatile responded clearly: “This answer is no. Everybody’s land. Redistribution must look at whether the land is used productively, whether there is energy security and so on. We are not targeting white farmers.”

Mashatile acknowledged that when the ANC previously called for land to be returned to “our people”, they generally meant the previously disadvantaged.

Cases must be handled ‘orderly’

Therefore, the ANC’s current approach to the land question is to test the allowances in the law, while Parliament conducts its process to ascertain whether the Constitution needs to be changed.

“Some of our advisers have said you don’t need to amend the Constitution because there is no court of law that has ever ruled on the matter.

“So the ANC has decided that we will ask government [departments] to proceed with this matter while Parliament is testing this.”

ALSO READ: Land expropriation without compensation key to taking forward Madiba’s vision – Ramaphosa, Zuma

Mashatile stressed that test cases must be handled “orderly”.

“This is not land grabs. In fact, in contrast, it will avoid land grabs because it will be controlled by the state.

“Government must be the one to identify land to be expropriated and go beyond focusing on just privately-owned land. When we start rolling out restitution, security of tenure, we will look at all land, especially government-owned land.

“The government owns vast tracts of land. There is land lying fallow, owned by absentee landlords, and we have to look at all of that.”

Land must be used productively

They also agreed that, unlike in the past, farmers have to be working the land.

“There needs to be support and that would ensure food security.”

In urban areas, people simply needed a place to build their own houses.

ALSO READ: ‘It’s unfounded, a complete misunderstanding’ – Lekota’s reaction to being called a sell-out

“When I was MEC in the Gauteng legislature, people were saying: ‘Don’t worry about RDP houses. Just give us land. We will build our own houses. Give us title deeds so we have security and we will go to [the bank] and raise money against our assets’.”

Ultimately, in rural areas, they want land to be used productively. In urban areas, they want available land for people to receive title deeds and build their own houses.

“The ANC won’t walk in and say: ‘We see your factory and it’s working well, but we want your land’. If it’s working productively [there is no worry]…”

As the ANC, they will test expropriation without compensation as it currently stands in the law and “if there is a problem, the courts will tell them”.

JOHANNESBURG – A contractual dispute between Robert Marawa and the SABC has been resolved and the seasoned broadcaster will return to host a radio sports show from next month.

”All contractual issues between the organisation and Mr Marawa have been resolved amicably and the SABC looks forward to having Mr Marawa back on board once again to deliver another dose of award winning sports programming, as we grow our audiences and fulfill our mandate as a public service broadcaster,” SABC spokesman Kaizer Kganyago said in a statement on Wednesday.

READ: Striking SABC employees vow to shut down public broadcaster

The parties were embroiled in a legal tussle after the SABC rescinded Marawa’s contract as a result of an investigation into his appointment was launched by the former CEO Nomsa Philiso. She reportedly set up the probe to find out whether proper procedures were followed for his million rand a year contract after staff complained about the validity of the appointment. Chief Operating Officer, Chris Maroleng, was reportedly behind the questionable appointment, and the contract was eventually rescinded.

Marawa did not take the decision lying down and set his lawyers on the SABC to demand millions for cancelling his contract.

Marawa said in the joint statement: ”I see this as a continuation of a journey with the SABC and one that shows commitment from the leadership of the public broadcaster in fulfilling its public service mandate. This high level of support is important to me in delivering the kind of quality show that the listener deserves, and with the historic simulcast option, we hope rush-hour traffic frustrations will be a thing of the past.”

The sports show will air simultaneously om Metro FM and Radio 2000 between 18h00 and 20h00 on weekdays.

African News Agency

Residents of Babaton informal settlement in Duncan Village, East London, say they are tired of breathing sewage from two blocked drains.

“We have been reporting this issue since last year, and the municipality promises to come and fix it. Then nothing happens. The leaking is directly in front of my shack,” said Bulelwa Mbiko, according to a GroundUp report.

“They just came to observe the damage in March. Nothing has been done,” said Mbiko.

“Children play here when school is out.

“I really wish the councillor would come and live in this dump for a day and feel our daily struggles.”

Babaton was established 27 years ago and is home to more than 300 people. Residents share eight communal toilets and two taps.

Residents must ‘take proper care’ of toilets

“This dirty water flows right in front of my shack,” says Babaton committee member Nkonki Tulwana.

“We have called the councillor on several occasions to come and see this mess for herself, but she has never done that. The main challenge we have in Babaton is that we have people who are staunch fans of the councillor; as a result they overlook her shortcomings.

“I will never vote while I breathe faeces every day,” said Tulwana.

Ward 2 councillor Ntombizandile Mhlola told GroundUp: “I will report the matter to the municipality, because according to my knowledge the process of fixing broken sewer systems is ongoing and Babaton is on the plans.

“It is not that I am ignoring the residents, because I do call meetings sometimes to brief residents.”

Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality engineering and sanitation programmes manager Mkhuseli Nongogo said: “The main cause of blockages in sewer systems is that the toilets used by residents have smaller pipes.

“People have a responsibility to also make sure that they take proper care of these toilets. The municipality has in its financial budget for this year included the maintenance of toilets and fixing of sewer systems in Duncan Village.”

2018-07-24 08:21

The celebration of Nelson Mandela’s 100th birthday last week and former US president Barack Obama’s address at the occasion brought warmth to my heart, but also caused me to ask with Obama: Were we who believed in a progressive vision of tolerance, a common humanity, a caring, open society and social justice naïve? Is this vision dead?

“Progressive” is the key word here. Many associate it with left-wing political thinking, others with liberalism, yet others claim the title but are anything but progressive.

To me a progressive political ethos simply means a desire and agitation for continuous progress towards a better and more caring society with the emphasis on openness, social justice, human dignity and solidarity rather than populism or identity politics.
These values were not a mirage in Mandela’s world.

Five days after his release in February 1990 he invited me for tea at his humble Soweto house. He was a world famous 68-year-old Xhosa speaking man, a revolutionary who had just been released from prison after 27 years; I was a middle class white Afrikaner more than 40 years younger.

Mandela spoke to me in Afrikaans after apologising for what he called his Xhosa accent. It was just him and me and he made and poured the tea – far too much milk and sugar to my taste, but I would have drunk a cup of bile with a smile that day just to be in his presence.

He gave me a lesson in Afrikaner history and said he not only needed Afrikaners to buy into his vision of a new society, but he thought they would make good allies and eventually feel at home and be active in a new, inclusive nation. If only they could remember their own struggles with British imperialism and overcoming poverty, he added.

But more importantly, Mandela shared some of his ideas of a more loving, compassionate society where all citizens, especially young people, would have the possibility to live to their full potential. 

I remember finding it astonishing that this human being who was so fresh out of an apartheid prison could talk to me about love and compassion. He wasn’t an ideologue, he was a progressive humanitarian. 

In the years after this meeting, Mandela practiced and preached these ideas and ideals; and in the process inspired many millions of people all over the world, including a young American lawyer who would become the president of his country in 2009.

But over the last decade or so, South Africa has regressed into an erosion of our democracy, cheap populist politics, a culture of entitlement, selfishness and corruption, ethnic nationalism, polarisation and intolerance.

It wasn’t much different in other parts of the world. Obama speaks of the “politics of fear and resentment and retrenchment”, of growing authoritarianism, the undermining of free speech, the contempt for truth and facts and of strongman politics.

In South Africa the narrative of black emancipation was abused to cover up the abuse of power, maladministration and corruption and to mobilise people around narrow ethnic chauvinisms.

On the side of the white minority there were far too many who chose to remember Mandela’s forgiveness and reconciliation but to forget his insistence on social justice and redress. They started withdrawing with the self-pity of a newly discovered victimhood into their privileged ethnic trenches from where they are firing shots at the rest of society.

The world’s most prosperous and successful societies, says Obama, the ones with the highest living standards and highest levels of satisfaction among their people, happen to be “those who have most closely approximated the liberal, progressive ideal that we talk about and have nurtured the talents and contributions of all their citizens”.

He adds: “The fact is that countries which rely on rabid nationalism and xenophobia and doctrines of tribal, racial or religious superiority as their main organising principle, the thing that holds people together – eventually these countries find themselves consumed by civil war or external war.”

I agree with Obama that the road back to progressive values would be a tough and possibly long one, but one that has to be tackled with courage and perseverance.

We have to fight harder to reduce inequality, says Obama, and do a lot more to promote lasting economic opportunity for all.
He favours an “inclusive market-based” system but warns against “unregulated, unbridled, unethical capitalism”. I agree.

Obama quotes from Mandela’s teachings that the most important universal principle is that we are bound together by a common humanity and that each individual has inherent dignity and worth.

Embracing our common humanity does not mean that we have to abandon our unique ethnic and national and religious identity – Mandela himself never stopped being a black African South African of Xhosa heritage.

I think Obama would have understood what we meant when we embraced the principle of non-racialism in the 1980s.

I hope we South Africans will use this year of remembering Nelson Mandela to ponder how we could see beyond the thunder and lightning and imagine a better future for our society.

I can recommend reading matter for this purpose: the Founding Principles and Bill of Rights of the South African Constitution.

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