ISSUE 108 | MARCH 2018
alternatives to globalisation
• Out with the old: in with the not-so-new (or clean) Shawn Hattingh • Not a matter of if, but when Shawn Hattingh • New Labour Bills attack workers’ rights and democracy Jonathan Payn • The betrayal of a Revolution Mandy Moussouris • Alternatives to capitalism: The Rojava experiment Shawn Hattingh • The Cape Town Water Crisis and its affect on black working class women Mzimasi Mngeni • Exposing the plans to privatise our water resources and services Mo, Water Crisis Coalition • Stimela Hugh Masekela
OUT WITH THE OLD: IN WITH THE NOT-SO-NEW (OR CLEAN)
l not end corruption wil sa s tender. under Ramapho
Photo: Zuma and Ramaphosa at Women’s Day celebration, 2015, GCIS
For white and international capital recent weeks have been a period of rejoicing due to Ramaphosa’s election as ANC President. Zuma’s days as State President are now also over. He was recalled by the ANC and in doing so was forced to resign; leading the business elite to feel an even greater sense of smugness.
The bitter faction fights within the ANC, therefore, have seen Zuma defeated and his erstwhile supporters – a section of BEE capital and parasites in the top of the state – placed squarely on the back foot. The slate Ramaphosa won on was the promise to eradicate corruption within the state and ANC. The accompanying tone was that Zuma would be removed from the Presidency and possibly even prosecuted, along with the Guptas, for his role in ‘state capture’. The ANC hopes such moves will reverse its ailing fortunes and bolster its 2019 election campaign. Its alliance partners, the SACP and
COSATU, are also opportunistically hoping Zuma’s state exit will give them a new lease of life politically; and that their leaders will be able to hold onto their cushy and ridiculously well-paid jobs in top state echelons – initially handed to them by Zuma for their backing in Polokwane, 2007 – under Ramaphosa. The reality is that the battle within the ANC, and now Zuma’s demise, has very little to do with addressing corruption – despite Ramaphosa’s claims. It was a fight for top state positions and the speed with which Zuma’s former die-hard supporters and allies, including Ace Magashule and Malusi Gigaba,
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Lead Story have jumped ship since Ramaphosa’s victory shows this. In the bid to secure their wellpaying jobs going forward and to use state positions to secure business deals, old allies have been dumped and a new one, in the form of Ramaphosa, has been embraced. However, Ramaphosa’s history highlights how his anti-corruption talk is a ploy with no substance. This is because Ramaphosa himself has been involved in corruption. Ramaphosa got rich overnight in the 1990s by using workers’ pensions (supplied by union investment companies) to raise capital for his business deals. He was also supplied capital by white South African capitalists (a tiny elite of perhaps a few thousand individuals). To be sure, they were not buying Ramaphosa’s business acumen when they provided him shares, board positions and capital; they were buying his influence in the ANC and the state in order to further their own capital accumulation. All of this was backed by the ANC as it was expected that Ramaphosa would use his newfound riches to boost Party coffers. Ramaphosa’s main business interest was Shanduka, which he founded in 2001. While in charge of the company, it was involved in tax evasion. By 2012, as is well known, Ramaphosa was a shareholder and Board member of Lonmin and was the one that used his political connections to get the state to crush the 2012 platinum strike, which saw the police gun down 34 workers at Marikana. Ramaphosa is not a man, therefore, who particularly shuns corruption or using connections to the state and political power to further his own vile money making interests or those of his business partners.
in business Ramaphosa s ma anduka, interest was Sh d in 2001. which he founde of the While in charge involved company, it was in tax evasion.
Even today, corruption is common practice in the private sector (still mostly in the hands of white South African capitalists). This was shown through numerous leaks in 2017 and 2018. For example, it recently surfaced that Liberty and Illovo have been using measures to evade tax on an ongoing basis. Not to be outdone, several South African financial institutions were recently caught manipulating the Rand to profiteer from the volatility created. Then of course there is Steinhoff, that used Special Purpose Vehicles to fraudulently boost profits and lower debts on its books to benefit its shareholders and top management. When this became public knowledge, it was clear that the company was in reality in financial difficulties and its share price plunged at the end of 2017. Like Zuma, Steinhoff’s days may be numbered and it soon may disappear altogether.
phosa The slate Rama e won on was th icate promise to erad hin the corruption wit state and ANC. White capital, therefore, has no problem with corruption. The problem with Zuma was that they were being side-lined in the corrupt deals, with far more going to the Gupta family and a new BEE elite. Hence, they turned on the Zuma faction and backed Ramaphosa as their man: they wanted back in on the money, often involving corruption, which could be made through relations with the state and top politicians. This means corruption will not end under Ramaphosa’s tender. Making matters worse is the deal that was made in 1994, which saw the bulk of the private sector remaining in the hands of white capital. In return there would
His backers in the form of white capital are also not averse to corruption. Historically, their capital comes from colonial conquest and the state creating a pool of cheap black labour that could be exploited on farms, mines and factories through land grabs, hut taxes, pass laws, legalised racial discrimination and violence. Corrupt apartheid era deals, and there were many, built up white capital and were part and parcel of how business was done in those years – including transfer pricing, tax evasion and sanctions busting.
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WORKERS WORLD NEWS | No. 108 | March 2018
...Goodbye
be some BEE, but more importantly the ANC leadership would be allowed to take over the state. In other words capitalism would stay in place, including the harsh exploitation of the black working class on which it was and is based, but the faces in the state would change. Aspiring capitalists linked to the ANC, who wanted to own large private companies, were and have been largely frustrated by established capitalists. In this context the state became the key, and in many cases the only, site through which an ANC elite could build itself into a prosperous black section of the ruling class – and corruption has been part of this structural problem. The working class, in its bid to battle corruption, therefore needs to be clear that the Ramaphosa regime won’t end corruption. It is a structural problem and has nothing to do with good or bad personalities. New patronage networks will emerge, some old ones – including corruption at all levels of the state and private sector – will remain; although it will probably be less blatant and amateurish than under Zuma. This is because corruption is a problem linked to the path capitalist development has taken in South Africa. If there is a serious bid to get rid of corruption, therefore, the structure and purpose of the South African economy would have to be fundamentally changed, which probably can’t be fully achieved under capitalism or the state system (which entrenches oppression by an elite minority over a majority and allows for corruption).
Ending corruption, by definition, will have to be a revolutionary struggle to fundamentally change the society we have unfortunately inherited.
International News
NOT A MATTER OF IF BUT WHEN One problem is that the key buyers of these bonds are now Central Banks themselves; not a sign of health, but an ailing system in which private corporations are becoming loathe to speculate on bonds that are possibly in bubble territory. Buying up bonds too means major states are seemingly trapped in an endless spiral of debt.
Photo: New York Stock Exchange, Pixabay.com In early January 2018, capitalists across the globe were celebrating the fact that the Dow Jones had rallied by 45% since the election of Donald Trump. Likewise, brokers were beaming in Sandton when the Johannesburg Stock Exchange hit a high of 61 475 points (up a staggering 300% from early 2009 when at one point it sat at 18 465 points). Yet beneath all the exuberance danger signs abound – including signs that stock, bond and debt markets are experiencing bubbles, which will burst at some point. The danger derives from the reactions of the ruling classes and their states to the crisis of 2008. The paths they chose to follow to save and even further their own wealth in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis have paved the way for a future crash that could dwarf the one of a decade ago. The main thing currently keeping the global economy stumbling along – and not crashing down as happened in the 1930s – has been massive intervention by states in the EU, US and China. Since 2008, the US state has spent trillions of dollars bailing out large corporations; many that were and are effectively bankrupt, whilst imposing austerity on the working class. Quantitative Easing (QE) too has seen states assisting capitalists through creating money and handing it over to corporations. Far from using this money wisely, corporations have gone on a speculative binge, leading to souring stock markets. Bailouts and QE are not the only manner states have propped up an ailing capitalism; low and in some cases even zero interest rates have been implemented by major states through
their Central Banks. For instance, for several years the US state kept interest rates at zero; while states in the European Union have even had negative interest rates. Capitalism has become dependent on these low interest rates in the US and EU. Without it bankruptcies will proliferate. States find themselves in a bind. The main fear of the ruling classes that control states is inflation and rising wages for the working class – as rising wages slightly dent the vast sums of wealth being funnelled up the class pyramid. To halt any inflationary pressure, the US state has slowly and cautiously been raising interest rates again. Should extremely low interest rates end, and be raised to levels even as low as 3%, thousands of businesses will go bankrupt. This is due to the reality that 12% of US companies are no longer viable if interest rates even rise marginally. That is, their earnings do not cover their interest repayments and an increase in rates by the US state would propel them into bankruptcy. So dependent have they become on the continuous supply of low interest and even negative interest money from states. The Trump regime has, of course, not deviated from the path of using the state to prop up capitalism; but has rather deepened it. The slashing of the tax rate to 15% has been another gift to corporations that will in the end total trillions of dollars. To fund all these bailouts, undertake QE, keep interest rates at record low levels and fund tax breaks states have issued bonds – in other words, they have taken on debt.
The low interest rates have also seen corporations enormously increasing their debt. This, however, has not been used to invest in productive sectors but has been used to speculate. This has seen large corporations once again borrowing to speculate on opaque derivatives, speculate on stock markets and even speculate on fads such as bitcoin. In the US alone listed corporations have spent US $4 trillion since 2008 using the cheap and free money the state has given them to buy their own shares to boost the prices. The size of the debt problem is, therefore, massive. Global state and private debt has risen to over US $233 trillion – 300% the size of the planet’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Under such circumstance it is not a matter of if the bubbles end, but when. When these do burst; the states that have been pumping money into the financial sector may find themselves with few tools left in the box to avert a massive crisis. Given state’s already have vast debts and are already the main purchasers of their own bonds, adding further massive amounts of debt to bailout corporations when the bubbles burst may not be an option. Likewise, states are being forced in the current context to gradually raise interest rates, rather than reduce them – which they used as one mechanism to assist corporations in the crash of 2008. The bad news for the ruling class, their states and companies (and possibly everyone including the working class), therefore, is that they are running out of space and time to manoeuvre.
When the crash does come, the political and social consequences will be chaotic. Given the fact that the working class internationally is weak, further shifts to the right and even fascism could be a real outcome. If the working class is to prevent this it needs to revive revolutionary politics in opposition to the ruling classes, their states and capitalism.
WORKERS WORLD NEWS | No. 108 | March 2018
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My Struggle
NEW LABOUR BILLS ATTACK WORKERS’
RIGHTS AND DEMOCRACY
y being Bills currentl rliament: considered by pa ons of the Basic Conditi l, the Employment Bil Wage Bill National Minimum Relations and the Labour Amendment Bill.
Photo: Pixabay.com
On 17 November 2017, the Minister of Labour announced the state intends to carry out a new round of attacks on workers and their rights. The attacks come in the form of three Labour Bills currently being considered by parliament: the Basic Conditions of Employment Bill, the National Minimum Wage Bill and the Labour Relations Amendment Bill. If passed, the changes to the labour laws these bills propose will be a major attack on workers’ rights, won through decades of struggle, and will further deepen and entrench inequality and roll back important democratic gains. Government claims the bills are intended to reduce the number of protracted, unprotected and so-called violent strikes. The fact, however, is that these bills are designed to restore and increase bosses’ profits, severely hit by the ongoing economic crisis, and attract foreign direct investment by providing ultra-cheap black labour and limiting workers’ ability to strike in defense of their rights and interests.
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Two of the most important weapons that workers have to defend themselves against the ruling class and win better wages and conditions, and to advance struggles for other rights and needs, are the rights to strike and to organise around their interests independently of bosses and the state. The proposed amendments to the LRA would further undermine the independence of unions and make it more difficult for workers to go on protected strikes through the introduction of a secret strike ballot, default picketing rules, compulsory arbitration and more cumbersome bureaucratic procedures before strike actions. This is an attack on the right of workers to
WORKERS WORLD NEWS | No. 108 | March 2018
make their own collective decisions about their organisations and about strike action without interference from bosses or the state. By increasing the conciliation period before workers can go on a protected strike from 30 to 35 days the amendments would make it easier for bosses and the state to undermine, delay, interfere with and prevent workers from striking. Moreover, although the LRA amendments are supposedly intended to prevent strikes from becoming ‘violent’ they do not address one of the main factors that cause strikes to become violent in the first place: the bosses’ use of scab labour. The National Minimum Wage (NMW) and proposed changes to the Basic Conditions of Employment Act (BCEA) would take away important rights for some of the most vulnerable and exploited workers by phasing out Sectoral Determinations and replacing them with the NMW.
My Struggle Sectoral Determinations currently set minimum wages as well as conditions of employment in a given sector. For example, the Sectoral Determination governing the farm work sector says that farm workers have the right to housing on the farms. If the Sectoral Determination is removed thousands of workers and their families could face eviction. Similarly, the Domestic Work sectoral determination prohibits bosses from charging a domestic worker more than 10% of their wages for accommodation. If the sectoral determination goes there is nothing to stop bosses charging workers anything they think they can get away with.
e designed ...these bills ar increase to restore and .. bosses profits. Moreover, the NMW does not actually set a monthly minimum wage. It only sets an hourly minimum wage of R20 per hour (R18 p/h for
farmworkers, R15 p/hour for domestic workers and R11 p/h for public works, to be increased to R20 p/h by 2020) with a minimum number of four hours. This means that workers that work less than 40 hours a week, such as those who work part time or flexible hours, might not even get the already inadequate R3 500 per month. This is not nearly enough to live on and a slap in the face to the workers that died at Marikana for a living wage of R12 500. While it is vital to resist the bills and defend hard-won workers’ and democratic rights we must remember that even now, while we do still supposedly have these rights – at least on paper – they are violated by the bosses and the state daily and millions of people still cannot access them. This is not simply due to corruption, mismanagement, lack of finance or imperialist meddling etc., but is the direct result of the neoliberal war on the poor that the ruling class – black and white – has waged against the black working class in South Africa for four decades; first under apartheid and continued under the ANC. These bills are a clear example
Farm workers
R18 Per hour
of how the ruling class uses the state do to this. And how what the state gives with one hand – such as the right to strike – it does so under duress, when the working class is strong and united, and will just as easily take away with another hand when it serves the interests of the ruling class and the working class is weak and divided. This is because the state is not neutral but an undemocratic institution of elite minority rule over the working class majority.
The struggle to guarantee human and workers’ rights for everyone, once and for all, and to meet their needs will necessarily have to be a revolutionary struggle against capitalism and the state to radically change the structure and purpose of the South African economy and the society we live in.
less than 40 hours
a week ...those who work part time or flexible hours might even get...
Domestic workers
R 15
Per hour
Public works workers
R11 Per hour
less than
R3 500 Per month
This is not nearly enough to live on and a slap in the face to the workers that died at Marikana for a living wage of R12 500.
WORKERS WORLD NEWS | No. 108 | March 2018
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The ongoing war in the Middle East, the Arab Spring followed by what seems to be a winter of war that rivals Game of Thrones has seen the death of many a revolutionary and many a revolutionary dream. Within this ongoing war are stories of struggle against tyranny, struggles by ordinary people to gain some sort of control over their lives as they get buffeted between superpowers and ideologies fuelled by greed and underlying neoliberal capitalism. The struggle of the Kurdish people of Rojava is one such story. It is not a new one and it is not a perfect one. It is a story of courage and inspiration, of brave women and men, of complexity and of huge challenges. It is a story of our age, where competing geopolitical powers fuel wars in other lands and on other people to further their own interests. Since 2014, the Kurdish people and their peoples’ defence units in Syria – the YPG (Male Defence Units) and YPJ (Female Defence Units) – have been defending their towns and areas against one
of America’s most wanted terrorist groups, the Islamic State (IS), after Syrian state forces retreated from Kurdish areas. IS on the other hand have been fighting the YPG and YPJ for control of the area. Turkey says the YPG and YPJ are linked to Turkey’s most wanted terrorist group, the PKK (Kurdish Worker’s Party). Over the years, the YPG and YPJ have pushed back IS and increasingly built a safe zone within their borders where feminist principles and a system of participatory self-management have been core to the society they are busy trying to protect and develop. The Kurdish controlled zones are collectively known as Rojava. Whilst there are some problems and contradictions within Rojava, there are important revolutionary principles and social experiments taking place. For more information on this check out our educational series on page 8. There are many lessons we can learn from Rojava. One important one is how attempts by people to build self-management and fight institutions like capitalism and patriarchy get used and battered in the never ending war between Karl Marx’s proverbial “band of warring brothers” and the states that support them. When the war in Syria first broke out in 2011, after popular uprisings against the Assad regime, a vacuum in power developed
which saw a number of different parties/organisations/interests fighting to fill the power vacuum. One of these groups was IS and this gave the United States of America (USA) the perfect excuse to get involved. Because the people of Rojava were defending their areas against IS and had succeeded in forcing them back the USA agreed to support their self-defence units (YPG and YPJ) with weapons. This assisted with the further push back of IS. At the same time the Syrian government and their supporters, backed by Russia, were also fighting IS but the USA does not support the Syrian Assad Government or Russia. Turkey, in turn, covertly supports IS because it does not support the Assad regime and it doesn’t want a revolutionary Rojava on its doorstep that could spread into Turkey.
to support the USA agreed nce units their self-defe ith weapons. (YPG and YPJ) w There are Kurdish people living in Syria, Turkey, Iran and Iraq and there have long been calls for Kurdish independence in Turkey which led to the 1980’s formation of the PKK, who have used
insurrectionist tactics to fight for independence. As the YPG and YPJ have got stronger and brought larger areas in Syria under their control and gained access to arms via the USA, so the perceived threat to Turkey has increased, culminating in Turkey invading Afrin (an area in Rojava), through both airstrikes and ground troop attacks close to the Turkish border but within Syrian territory. The Syrian Government has been reluctant to defend its border and has allowed the Turkish army to conduct the airstrikes but also has tacit agreement to support the Kurds, and has unofficially sent in “Popular Mobilization Units” (PMU) loyal to the Assad regime. Both America and Turkey are members and allies in NATO but are backing each other’s so-called terrorists in the Syrian War and at the same time trying to save a bit of face publicly. As a result America has started withdrawing its political support for the Kurdish people in Syria and has made no statements condemning the attack by Turkey on Rojava leading to the death of hundreds of civilians, including many children. And so, once again, like in Spain in the 1930s a movement of ordinary citizens to create a new, different and better life without patriarchy and capitalism is betrayed by the geo-political powers that claim to support them but ultimately only ever work for themselves alone and will crush any and everything to get what they want.
EDUCATIONAL SERIES
PART 2 7 8
Alternatives to capitalism: the Rojava experiment In this education series we look at experiments, which have arisen through working class struggles, to create alternatives to capitalism. This will include looking at present and past alternatives to capitalism. In doing this, we are not saying these experiments should be carbon copied – they have often taken place in very different times and contexts. Rather we are trying to show that, through struggle and experimentation, new societies that overturn capitalism can be brought into being; even under very harsh conditions. This, we believe, provides hope to working class struggles: what we have today under the capitalist and state system can be ended and replaced by a better society. Experiments in alternatives show clearly how another world is possible.
In this article, the first article of the education series on alternatives to capitalism, we look at an experiment that is taking place today, known as the Rojava Revolution, to overturn capitalism and the state system in northern Syria (which is being subjected to an imperialist and civil war). In Rojava a social revolution, influenced by libertarian socialism, has been underway since 2012 and a new society has emerged in the process. Rojava is an outcome of the struggle that has been waged by the Kurds for national liberation. Nonetheless, it has gone beyond even national liberation and has become an experiment to create a confederation of worker and community councils and communes to replace capitalism and the state.
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WORKERS WORLD NEWS | No. 108 | March 2018
Initially up until the 1990s, the Kurdish national liberation struggle was mainly influenced by Stalinism. However, in the late 1990s the movement began reflecting and analysing the failed experiments in Russia, China and Cuba which saw the Communist Parties in those countries setting up state capitalism in the name of revolution. As part of the reflection and analyses, the Kurdish liberation movement – in which the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) plays a key role – came to view all states as hierarchical and patriarchal institutions that, far from brining freedom, always ensured the oppression of a majority by a minority that headed these states. As part of this, by the early 2000s, the Kurdish liberation movement had come to be heavily influenced by some of the ideas – although not all – of the libertarian socialist Murray Bookchin. Bookchin himself started out his political life as a Stalinist but moved to anarchism before adopting a form of libertarian socialism based on communalism, social ecology, feminism and libertarian municipalism. Under this, the goal of the Kurdish movement broadened to struggle for a revolution in the Middle East as a whole. As part of this desired revolution, and in line with its left libertarian and feminist orientation, the movement has explicitly stated that it does not aim to create a state; but rather a system of direct democracy that would be defined by people setting up assemblies, councils and communes that are confederated together. It has called this ‘democratic confederalism’.
EDUCATIONAL SERIES
However, there are contradictions too; for example there is a glorification of the symbolic leader of the Kurdish struggle, Abdullah Ocalan, that runs counter the egalitarian goals of democratic confederalism. Nonetheless, in Rojava in 2012 – as the Syrian state withdrew from the area as the civil war erupted – elements of democratic confederalism (although not all) began to be implemented. As part of this communes, federated neighbourhood assemblies and a federated Rojava council have been established with the aim of ensuring that there is a direct democracy in Rojava without a state. Women play a central role in this and each community assembly, commune or council has to ensure gender equality amongst the mandated and recallable delegates that participate in these forums. This is one of the central pillars of the experiment in feminism. In terms of the economy, it has been reported that the people in Rojava have also begun rolling back aspects of capitalism. Some sources estimate that 80% of the economy is now run through democratic workers’ co-operatives. Small private businesses still exist, but they are reportedly accountable to the communes – and are mandated by these to meet the needs of the people. To defend the Revolution, Rojava has established a democratic militia called the People’s Protection Units (YPG), in which unit leaders are elected and recallable. The establishment of democratic militia has been part of shunning the notions of a hierarchical standing army, which are associated with states. Thousands of people – including
from other countries – have joined these militia and have been engaged in struggle against various grouping wishing to destroy the revolution, including the Islamic State (ISIS). Women play a central role in the militia – in fact there are women-only militia’s called the Women’s Protection Units (YPJ). The YPJ are some of the best units of all and played a key role in the defeat of ISIS.
Women play a central ct role in the militia in fa there are women-only ns militia s called the Wome Protection Units (YPJ). Rojava, however, does face threats. Internally a state may yet still arise, and the elevation and glorification of Ocalan is deeply concerning. Externally, the biggest threat to Rojava in the foreseeable future is Turkey. In January 2018, Turkey invaded parts of Rojava to stop the revolution spreading to its territory – which has a large Kurdish population. The invasion is ongoing. The US temporarily backed Rojava militia against ISIS. With the defeat of ISIS, however, it too could turn on Rojava. Despite the threats, Rojava shows a more just society can be created by working class struggles, even in the context of a harsh civil war.
Rojava is an outcome of en the struggle that has be waged by the Kurds for national liberation.
WORKERS WORLD NEWS | No. 108 | March 2018
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Gender Page
THE CAPE TOWN WATER CRISIS
AND ITS AFFECT ON BLACK WORKING CLASS WOMEN The City of Cape Town is facing an unprecedented water crisis with ‘Day Zero’ looming in the next few months. The current water crisis has received massive local and international news coverage that presented and brought new ideas and changes as solutions to the crisis. The water crisis is being used to score political points between the ANC and DA by shifting the blame to each other while people suffer as the situation gets worse. The evidence, however, points to the failure of the South Africa government in general, and the City of Cape Town in particular, in developing and designing future and extra water resources that could have kept Cape Town and the region as a whole out of the water crisis. This means that neither the ANC nor the DA are blame free. The City of Cape Town’s response to the water crisis is a neoliberal anti-working class one based on imposing the installation of Water Management Devices (WMDs) on working class communities. These WMDs are set to deliver an average of 350 litres of water per day. This is too little for many working class households that have 5 or more members.
HOW THE CRISIS AFFECTS WORKING CLASS WOMEN In the present South African political context, women are the key agents of change in relation to the water crisis. It’s women and young girls who collect water in faraway areas and communal taps in the informal settlements around the country. The Cape Town water crisis will mainly affect women from poor working class communities. It is women who on a daily basis walk long distances to collect water while their male counter parts are just sitting waiting for ready made efforts by their wives. When Day Zero comes, and the taps run dry, it is clear that black working class women will suffer most as the caretakers of their households for many
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families to cook and for children to wash and attend schools. It is women who will also take care of the sick people when there is no water to wash them and make sure that all the sick people in our communities get access to water during this crisis situation.
HOW THE CRISIS BENEFITS BIG BUSINESS The water crisis in Cape Town is benefitting big drilling and filtration companies in Gauteng and the Eastern Cape. These are the companies that have won multimillion rand tenders from the City of Cape Town as the city struggles to get water supply as Day Zero looms. The City has prioritised R2.6 billion of the existing budget to prevent 4 million people from having their municipal water supply cut off. R363.4 million had gone to companies that won tenders for exploration and drilling for underground water, desalination and water filtration plants.
CONCLUSION: RESPONDING TO THE CRISIS South Africans need to know that the current crisis should not only be seen as just an extreme weather event or condition. But it should be seen as the consequence and results of global warming that has been caused by man–made climate change. So, while looking for immediate solutions for the water crisis in Cape Town, permanent long term solutions should be applied for the near future. In response to the immediate water crisis in Cape Town, there are certain measures to be implemented by the people and the government and other civil society organisations. Government should provide, for free, the working class households rain water harvesting tanks and also install these tanks to all public buildings to ensure that there is no water is wasted. The government must make sure that all bulk water supplies are managed with the inclusion of the City as a way of acting on the immediate
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solutions to the crisis. Again, the national government need to commit to developing the infrastructure for a national water pipeline that provides water to areas that don’t have water from areas that have enough water.
ls who It s women and young gir ay collect water in faraw s areas and communal tap Waste water reclamations are some of the things the government should start as an immediate measure. Storm water should no longer go down the drain but be harvested. The activists in the communities should always guard against the government promoting big business for profit in the course of this crisis. As we know the government is implementing WMDs into households in poor working class areas. This is being done in the name of saving water during the crisis while the state is opportunistically attacking the living standards of the poor people and promoting big business as everyone could see people buying bulks of water from the retail supermarkets. As the people that suffer the worst effects of the water crisis and the state’s response black working class women should be at the forefront of this struggle.
My Organisation
N IO IT L A O C IS IS R C R E T WA
ivatise our Exposing the plans to pr rvices water resources and se Photo: Mo, Water Crisis Coalition
The SA Environmental Observation Network (Koopman and de Buys, 2017) reports that the current low rainfall period in Cape Town is similar to that of 2004-2006 and 1971-1973. Completely ignored is the 2016 loss of 7,5 billion litres of water (15 days of water) that did not enter the Voelvlei dam due to the canals being blocked. Worse still, in 2016 agriculture was over-allocated 28,5 billion litres of water (a further 57 days water). Those who claim this is the worst drought in 300 years are exaggerating. Many across Africa, working class and poor peasants, bath in buckets and often share a communal tap and toilets. Recently, the local and provincial government came up with a new concept, a ‘day zero’ when they threaten to turn off taps to 4 million people even when dam levels will still be at 13,5%. There is a claim that the last 10% of dam water cannot be used, yet the City leadership will cut off all taps, except for the CBD, a whole month before time. This is what 3.5% of water represents. The National Department of Water and Sanitation has already applied engineering techniques that made another 4% of the remaining 10% usable. So in reality the City threatens to cut the water of the masses a whole 2 months before time. Why? The world economy has not recovered since its last major crisis of 2007/8. Public assets are being privatised. Electricity, schooling, social services, and now water, are being handed over to the monopolies to profiteer from.
On the 15th January 2018 about 65 organisations formed the Water Crisis Coalition. These are mostly residential groups, with worker, small farmer, faith-based and human rights groups and activists. We oppose bylaws, which for the first time introduce prepaid water meters. In other words, soon, just as with electricity, you will have to go to a shop to buy a coupon before the Council allows you to get water. The main so-called water saving measure of the City has been to ‘aggressively’ impose these water meters on all of us. In 2014 about 14% of houses had these new water meters. By the end of January 2018, over 60% of houses have had these devices installed, numbering over 300 000. There is growing resistance to these water management devices. The mandate from one of the Khayelitsha water committees is to organise the biggest march ever, to parliament, before any taps-closed date. Their cry is : ‘Water comes from the sky; no one will sell it to us’.
n Day zero has been prove it fake when they pushed back to the 11th May and now the 4th June... ‘Day zero’ has been proven fake when they pushed it back to the 11th May and now the 4th June, after agriculture stopped taking their allocation for irrigation. The irrigation season always ends at the same time, which should have been part of the original calculation. ‘Day zero’ was invented when agriculture was using huge amounts of water, from 800 to 1200 million litres a day. Large commercial agriculture has refused to adopt smart irrigation
which could bring down their use by 50%. So it was not that the residents of Cape Town were wasting water, it was big agriculture. Many small farmers and farm workers have had their water cut. Thousands of farm workers are now unemployed. The Groenpunt farmers also will release 10 billion litres of water back into Cape Town. This is another 20 days of water for the entire City. There are 70 springs, which are deliberately kept closed, that can provide more water at a fraction of the cost of the 3 desalination plants. The government is now promoting large scale desalination. The cost of a 150 million litre per day plant could be R150 billion. The companies championing desalination, Aveng and Murray & Roberts, were fined by the Competition Commission in the biggest ever corruption scandal. Desalination removes minerals such as magnesium, calcium and iodine, resulting in the doubling of the death rate from heart attacks. Desalination also erodes sandy shores and destroys sea life. Already over 60 billion litres of brine (brackish) water is pumped into the ocean every day around the world by desalination plants. In Australia many of the desalination plants lie idle due to the good rains and even though the plants are not used the price of water is still 60% higher. Already Cape Town pumps over 100 million litres of treated sewage and stormwater into the sea every day. Desalination will add another 100 million litres of toxic brine per day into the ocean.
Privatisation of water must be stopped. We call on every street, every school and every area to set up water committees. Join the Coalition: watercrisiscoalition@gmail.com
WORKERS WORLD NEWS | No. 108 | March 2018
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Section Topic
a l e m i t S
Masekela Composed by: Hugh (Verse)
Sikhalel’ izihlobo zethu (masibuyele le! eTalakubayi) Sikhalel’ izingane zethu wololo! (masibuyele le! eTalakubayi) Sikhalel’ abazali bethu! (masibuyele le! eTalakubayi) Sikhalel’ abafazi bethu, sithi Yelele yelele yelele yelele yelele
Stimela! Sihamba ngamalahle, sivel’ eTalakubayi. Sangilahla kwaGuqa Bathi sizomb’ amalahle. Iyohhh... (Stimela) Sidl’ inyol’ enkomponi. (Stimela!) Sihleli njengezinja - siyelele babe! Emikodini.
Credit: Monwabisi Dasie
WE WANT
TO HEAR
FROM
YOU
(Chorus) Stimela! Sihamba ngamalahle, sivel’ eTalakubayi.
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WORKERS WORLD NEWS | No. 108 | March 2018
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