We expose the state’s R3200 Bn infrastructure scam. Let’s prepare the way for a General strike!
For years
the world capitalist economy has been stagnating. Since 2007-8 crisis (which is
still continuing), the capitalists have intensified their attacks on the masses
of the world. Around the world the capitalists have come up with scams to
exploit the masses more and to bail themselves out. In China, India, South
Africa and many other countries, these scams are presented as ‘infrastructure
projects’. 27th April (‘Freedom’ day) commemorates the continued freedom
of Anglo American and other big capitalists to exploit the masses while
we have gained only the right to make an ‘X’ every 5 years to choose which
scoundrel will implement the plans of Anglo American. On Mayday the Cosatu
leaders give a platform to the ANC and SACP, who support e-tolling, they
want the labour laws weakened, they have reduced the taxes of big capital and
increased the price of petrol, they are building a few brick shacks in the
ghettoes and toilets in the veld; and here they are giving a bailout of R3204
000 000 000 (R3204 Billion) to Anglo American and other capitalists,
being given respectability by the Cosatu leaders.
The
myth of ‘there is no money’
In 2007
alone the big capitalists took out an extra R600Bn from South Africa through
‘transfer pricing’. This is when Anglo American and other big companies
deliberately undervalue the goods they export- in this way they cut down on the
taxes they pay and smuggle out massive wealth from the country. ‘Transfer
pricing’ has been carried out by Anglo American and other big capitalists for
years under the ‘apartheid’ regime and for years under the current regime. The
Cosatu, SACP and ANC leaders all know about this, yet they sit with folded arms
and allow this theft to happen. Cosatu’s Corruption Watch will not
investigate it as it will only look into the petty theft by government
officials, not the real corruption that is the basis of the capitalist system
itself. Besides this wealth being smuggled out, hundreds of billions of Rands
of wealth is taken by big capital out of the country every year. Currently the
big companies take out over R1000 Bn every year.
Who
will benefit from the projects?
R1945
Bn (61% of the R3204 bn)
will go to electricity. Most of this will go to coal and nuclear power
stations. China uses half the world’s coal every year, mostly for its power
stations. Hundreds of thousands of the Chinese masses die every year from
respiratory diseases due to the pollution from the coal power stations.
Already, solar power stations cost less than coal power- and the cost of solar
power is falling all the time. Also sunlight is free so there are virtually no
fuel costs, once the stations are up and running. Who controls the coal mines? Anglo
American.
The
Fukushima nuclear disaster on 11th March 2011 involved 3 meltdowns
of the nuclear cores. The entire area within 60km of the reactor has been
evacuated. Those on the border of this region can only go outside their homes
for 3 hours a day. The tens of thousands that have been evacuated will not be
able to go back to their homes for the next 100 years. Only 2 of Japan’s 54
nuclear reactors are now open- the rest have been shut down. After the disaster
Germany closed all the nuclear power stations. It will cost R3,5 trillion just
to decontaminate the area around Fukushima, a process which will take 10 years,
at least. The cost of nuclear power is prone to escalate- for example, the
Vogtle nuclear reactors cost 13 more than their original budget. [we only have
to think about how the Gautrain escalated from R5 bn to R30 bn in a short space
of time]. The Dai-ichi reactors in Fukushima were built with US technology that
their own designers knew to be defective. [We should not forget that since 1945
Japan is still under US military occupation]. Between 1979 and 2011 no new nuclear
reactor has been built in the USA. Nuclear is 5 times more expensive than gas
turbines. There is no safe mechanism for the spent fuel to be stored. The fuel
cannot be re-used as they are more prone to accidents. The Hamaoka reactor, one
of the safest in the world, with the thickest walls and extensive back-up
systems, burst a pipe when shut down, spewing several tons of seawater into the
active core. It has yet to be re-opened. Nuclear power takes 10 years to get
into active grid and they cannot just be switched off- they need at least 10
years and hundreds of billions of Rands just for the decommissioning process.
Now the government wants to build 6 more nuclear reactors in Cape Town. In the
event of an accident, imagine, having to get 3 million people from the Metro
area over the Sir Lowry’s pass and through the Hugenot tunnel! But who controls
the Uranium supplies in South Africa? Anglo American.
The state
has made nuclear power seem an option by massively increasing the electricity
price over the past 3-4 years(Nuclear power is very expensive- 6 times the
price of gas turbines). 75% of nuclear stations are capital costs which
reflects that most of the equipment used will have to be imported and the cost
of finance will be crippling, especially as SA has to pay much higher rate of
interest than the imperialist countries. (the bank rate in SA is 9% while it is
close to 0 in the USA).
Further,
Eskom will only build 100MW of solar power; this is about 0.1% of the total
required amount. The proposed 5000MW of solar power will be given to private
companies to make profit from, but the building of the solar park in the North
Cape will be funded by the state. The Inga 2 project from the DRC could yield
40 000MW, which raises the question, why is the state building expensive coal
and nuclear that is not needed. Solar and hydropower could cover all the needs
of the entire Africa. [The DRC hydroelectric plant could produce 200 000MW,
enough to double the current electricity usage in the entire Africa. Solar
power from the Sahara desert region could double even that]. A 24 square km
area in the North Cape desert is enough for all SA.
There is
no plan to meet the housing backlog of 2.1 million units. Instead only 2% of
the infrastructure plans will go to ‘human settlement’. This plan is for a few
thousand houses (19 000, some of which will be sold to the masses). The rest
will go to upgrading 150 townships with swings, painting walls and seesaws.
Shacks will be ‘upgraded’ so now workers will have high class toilets next to
them or in the backyards. [we are not even sure if the toilets will be working
as the state plans to ensure that water is costed on a profit basis- the price
of water will also sky-rocket].
The power
capacity will thus not be for households but mainly for industry. But industry is in absolute decline, so why the
need to more than double the power capacity (From the current 45 000 MW to
90 000 MW)?
Another R583
bn (almost 20% of the R3204 Bn) will go for transport; this is
mostly for highways, rail and ports upgrades for minerals and freight and for
new oil pipelines to make the more efficient plunder of the mineral wealth by
Anglo American and other capitalists. This will also be for ‘Industrial
Development zones’, IDZ’s, ie new slave areas where capitalists have less ‘red
tape’ to worry about for them to exploit the masses. Have Cosatu leaders
already struck a deal with their alliance partners to ‘relax’ labour laws?
Thus
over 80% of the infrastructure plan is just to serve the interests of the
capitalists.
The
provision to train engineering students is a hoax, as there are already
thousands of engineering graduates who cannot find jobs. The building of 2
universities and other small social projects are just a cover for the handing
over of trillions of the wealth to Anglo American and other capitalists.
The
working class will be made to pay
Despite
Vavi saying that the funding should come from low interest bonds, the reality
is that one way or another, the funds will come from the working class. This is
why the Cosatu leaders claim that this year’s 16% increase in electricity is a
‘victory’- they know workers will pay for infrastructure that will serve the capitalists
mainly. Anglo and others big capitalists pay 20 cents or less per unit of
electricity while we pay over 5 times more. The working class is already
subsidizing the electricity of the capitalist, now we must pay for the
infrastructure that will be used by big capital to exploit us even further. And
the electricity price will keep on increasing massively.
The annual
interest payment on a R3204 Bn loan will be R288 bn. This is in addition
to the R100Bn that the state already pays for its existing debt of R1000 Bn.
The state
has already taken billions from workers pension monies to fund the e-tolling
privatization of roads. They will take even more in future.
Workers
will be forced to pay more tax; like in Greece, the government may increase
VAT; the government will cut wages and pensions and they will cut on services.
Under the disguise of building a handful of academic hospitals, the public
health sector will be further collapsed. The real reason why public sector
workers will receive low increases this year is that the state coffers are
being plundered to bail out Anglo American, JP Morgan Chase and other
capitalists. Current and future generations will be made to pay for bailing out
the imperialist banks and Anglo American that control the entire economy.
In Greece,
all government income from import export does not even come into the country;
it goes into the private account of Goldman Sachs. The Lotto money has been
seized by Goldman Sachs. Greek workers are now forced to retire later.
Pensioners are committing suicide because they cannot survive- even the scraps
from the dustbins are not enough to keep them going. The same is happening
here. The government is unashamed to pay our pensioners R1200 per month while
overlooking the stealing of billions by Anglo American. Services, like water
and other basics will become ‘market-related’. In other words, even more,
massive price increases are due- this is why the state is rushing to install
pre-paid water meters.
Vavi
argues that the government must set up state concrete, construction and steel
companies, but Anglo American controls the concrete and iron-ore supplies. Any
state company will be a total hostage of Anglo American. Vavi and co know this.
They know that the infrastructure progamme is a scam to bail out Anglo American
and big capital but they still argue that
‘ the private sector can play an important role within the
context of a state-led infrastructure construction programme. For example, the skills that it contains can
be used for national development effort.
This has been seen in the case of the rescue of Chilean miners who were
trapped underground. There is no reason
why the private sector cannot contribute at a developmental price, to national
effort to build say, dams, water canals, replace mud schools with good quality
schools, etc’ [Vavi’s input to the Infrastructure April workshop]
But every
day, workers still die in the Chilean mines, controlled by Anglo American.
Workers still die every day in the mines across SA. The Cosatu leaders trust
big capital with the safety of workers in an unsafe, expensive nuclear and coal
scam. The Cosatu leaders help protect big capital by covering for the ANC-SACP
government that builds so few ‘houses’ that the price of housing has gone up by
426% (more than 4 times) in the past 7-8 years, the highest in the world. The
R78 Billion the state plans to spend on ‘human settlement’ is more than enough
to wipe out the 2.1 million housing backlog if pricing was done at the real
cost- but the state does costing at market rates and plans to build only 19000
housing units and build a few toilets in the veld.
The
infrastructure scam in South Africa is similar to other scams which the imperialist
World bank has forced on the masses in other parts of the world. A few weeks
ago 50 people were killed on the Sarmiento line in Buenos Aires, Argentina,
when a semi-privatized train crashed at the terminal station because the brakes
failed. The trains have failed safety tests since 2002 but the state overlooked
this and they kept on running. They even built double-decker trains to increase
the number of passengers squeezed into the trains but they cut the monies to
service the brakes. This is the type of future that the Cosatu leaders are
taking the working class to.
This same
infrastructure that will help to enslave us, the Cosatu leaders are saying we
must protect- it is not enough for the Cosatu leaders that workers are being
doomed to a life of eating out of the dustbins, they want us to become the
security guards for Anglo American.
The way
forward
The Cosatu
leaders are giving legitimacy to the biggest plunder of the working class in
history. This leadership has got to go. Further, workers need to discuss
at grassroots level , in the workplaces and in the communities to break the
alliance with the capitalist ANC and SACP. Any leader who still argues that
Cosatu should remain in the alliance with the capitalist ANC-SACP government
should be removed and replaced with an independent fighter. The time has
come to build an independent, revolutionary working class party. Join the
Workers International Vanguard Party, striving for the refounding of the Fourth
International!
Draft
demands and steps towards preparing for a General strike:
1.
Scrap
all privatization of roads, end all concessions to private contractors,
renationalize the roads under workers control- no compensation to the
capitalists;
2.
Open
the books of Anglo American and other big capitalists to a worker-controlled
public audit;
3.
Expropriate
all those capitalists guilty of ‘transfer-pricing’, without compensation to any
capitalists, placing all the assets under workers’ control;
4.
Begin
phasing out of all coal and nuclear power; towards 100% solar, hydro and wind
power; no to bailout of Anglo American and other capitalists!
5.
nationalise
all the land; expropriate all the cement and clay reserves from the hands of
the capitalists; expropriate all the large capitalist construction companies
and the banks, without compensation; for the creation of a single state bank
and single state construction company, under workers control; This will remove
the speculatively high price of housing; this will open the path to decent
housing for all at low rental, with exemption for the low paid, the unemployed
and pensioners, and the abolition of the segregated ghettoes;
6.
Expropriate
all the commercial farms; For worker collectives to be set up; state assistance
to all small farms and existing communal farms; expropriation of all the large
food companies and retailers, under workers control; for a single national food
distributor under workers control;
7.
Expropriate
the entire transport industry without compensation to the capitalists, under
workers control; for mass, safe public transport, under workers control;
8.
Expropriate
under workers control, of all industries that retrench workers;
9.
share
all work among all who can work, without loss of pay- reduce the working week;
10. to prepare the way to a General strike we
need to set up factory/strike committees (uniting worker delegates from all
unions and non-unionised workers) at every workplace, mine and farm; in every
community strike committees should be set up uniting employed workers,
unemployed workers and the youth; The strike committees should set up
committees of self-defence which should include delegates from rank and file
soldiers [the history of 1985 to 1995 shows that Anglo American and other big
capitalists will not hesitate to set up their own private armed groups to
attack workers- no ruling class has ever given up power to the masses, without
a fight]. We call for the working class in the USA and Europe to organise and
rise up against your own regimes. For revolutionary working class parties
across the world as part of refounding the Fourth International;
11. all military bases of the US and French
imperialists, out of Africa;
12. Re-integration of Lesotho and Swaziland
into South Africa, based on the right to self-determination;
13. For a Federation of Socialist workers
states of Southern Africa;
14. For a Soviet Africa (based on workers
councils).
This is
the way to establish real freedom; to commemorate the real essence of Mayday.
This is the way to globalise Tahrir square, the defence of Misrata, to
internationalise Syntagma Square, to take the Occupy Wall street movement to
its conclusion. Forward to Socialism!
27.04.2012 issued by Workers
International Vanguard Party (formerly Workers International Vanguard
League); 1st Floor, Community House, 41 Salt River rd, Salt River,
7925, ph 021 4476777; ph 0822020617, workersinternational@gmail.com ; website: www.workersinternational.org.za