Admin
26 Jan, 2014
West Rand Region Rally at Wedela Stadium in Carletonville
Speech by Bantu Holomisa, UDM President Programme Director, UDM NEC Members, UDM Gauteng PEC Members, UDM West Rand Regional Leadership, UDM Members, Fellow South Africans: Thank you to you all for making this rally a success. Words fail me to express how grateful we are for your hard work and contribution. Many of you come from and work in the surrounding mines. This places the assessment of the impact of economic conditions in this area at the centre of my speech today. This year South Africa celebrates twenty of democracy. This provides an opportunity to reflect on the progress made and the distance covered. As people who are responsible for mining the mineral wealth of this country, questions should be asked whether the ruling party has done enough to empower you both economically and otherwise. The answer to this question is regrettably an emphatic no! Since 1994, the ruling party has adopted policies that go against the spirit of the Freedom Charter, which says that the mineral wealth of the nation should be shared by all. The ruling party has instead develop policies, such as the Black Economic Empowerment, which enrich select few politically connected individuals. Such policies have left the poor, the marginalised and you the working class without economic freedom. While this occurs, some of the architects of the Constitution and our political liberty live in extraordinary opulence. These people are now the new lot of billionaires that continue to protect the interests of monopoly capital at your expense. As workers, you had high hopes that our political freedom would translate into job opportunities and meaningful economic freedom. This has not happened. Instead your former comrades and friends have turned against. They work with the capitalists to mechanise operations here, so as to increase profits. This results in many of you being retrenched every now and again. These predators are now obsessed with building railway lines to transport raw materials to countries like China for further processing because their primary focus is profit maximisation. Their modus operandi now affects all industries, including steel. Are these not the same people who always promise to beneficiate our natural recourses as a way to create jobs? One of the things that embarrass us as a nation is the level and the extent of corruption in the public sector. You heard that recently an amount of R6 million was set aside by the Eastern Cape government for the memorial service of the late former President Nelson Mandela. However, according to media reports it now turns out that the money was used to print ANC t-shirts for the 2014 elections and that these hyenas used some of it to spoil their girlfriends. How can such people claim to be serious about fighting corruption if the culprits walk scot free scandal after scandal? On Sunday the 02 of February 2013 in Nasrec, the UDM will be launching its manifesto where it will explain to you the slippery slope in which South Africa finds itself in under the ruling party. I thank you.
Admin
31 Dec, 2013
2014 – An opportunity for change
This past year has shown evidence that our Nation is on a slippery slope to becoming a third class nation with its citizens relegated to poverty and struggle. 2013 was littered by far too many corruption scandals, miscarriages of justice and a government that seems hell bent on staying this course. We witnessed the shocking verdict in the Andries Tatane case; the fiasco with the deployment of South African soldiers in the Central African Republic and the scandalous handling of hearings into the Marikana Massacre. Government’s indiscriminate use of its security agencies to quell service delivery protests; the Independent Electoral Commission’s lease agreement scandal and the International Relations Director General’s doubtful spending of half-a-billion Rand in the name of the African Renaissance Fund. The corruption and maladministration at the Universal Service and Access Agency of SA (USAASA). Government’s bungling of the Walter Sisulu University strike; the Tripartite Alliance’s internal strife and petty politics negatively affecting service delivery; the imposition of the e-Tolling system in Gauteng and then of course, Nkandlagate. 2014 brings with it an opportunity for us to recommit to the original agenda: to improve the lives of all South Africans. With the pending national and provincial elections, we hope that South Africans will have opened their eyes and see that the party they have trusted since 1994 have, as time has gone by, abused that trust and used them as voting fodder to enrich the few. To each person in our Rainbow Nation, we hope that 2014 brings with it prosperity and opportunities to better your life and those of your children. Happy New Year
Admin
24 Sep, 2013
South Africa on the Slippery Slope
Article by Bantu Holomisa published in the New Agenda During my career I have witnessed many governments come and go. As a former head of the Transkei Military Government, I have had an overview of what the Apartheid Government and the Bantustans had done, in comparison with what the current government is doing. The previous regime’s policies and abuse of human rights is well documented; including some homelands. Although I was heading this discredited institution, I was able to forge close links with all the liberation movements, when we ascended to power, as my government lent a shoulder in fighting for the freedom of all South Africans. One of the reasons why we supported the struggle was that we were hopeful that the new government would address the backlogs and imbalances of the past, especially in the townships and homelands. Indeed when the African National Congress (ANC) ascended to power in 1994 we can say that they started well. They made much progress in areas such as electrification, access to water and providing homes for the poor in the cities. However what shocked South Africans is the poor quality of the infrastructure they were given. Electricity is not reliable; water projects are launched only to break down after a few months and the RDP houses are worse than those built for blacks by the Apartheid government. Many towns have become slums because of the poor maintenance of infrastructure across the country. Where they had failed completely was on the question of employment. We see stark difference between the economic policies of the partners in the ruling alliance and in the past twenty years they have spent much energy vacillating between which routes to follow. Unemployment and poverty is a direct contradiction of freedom. Real freedom – political, social and economic – provides dignity to a nation. On the other hand, unemployment and poverty undermines it. South Africans are suspicious and mistrust government because of perceptions that it is not equitably distributing the resources of the country. A new privileged political elite exclusively enjoys the resources. There is no consensus on a macro-economic policy that can transform the economy in a manner that could create and spread wealth wider and improve the lot of the disadvantaged majority. There are in particular concerns about the inadequacies and contradictions of the fiscal and industrial policies. Our economy suffers from jobless growth due to the confusion created by an ambivalent tripartite alliance. This ruling clique preaches elimination of unemployment in the streets and legislate retrenchments and greater unemployment in Parliament. In the past 16 years, the United Democratic Movement (UDM) has been calling for GOVERNMENT TO DO MORE! Government has a responsibility to intervene and protect the South African economy and South African jobs when necessary. Whilst Free Market Capitalism is the best economic system developed by humanity, it is still fraught with weaknesses and failures that must be actively managed. The situation in South Africa is compounded by high levels of corruption. The UDM has over the years been involved in exposing many of these scandals. We have the resolve and commitment to fight corruption, and take on any party, no matter its history or power, to ensure that South Africans have the ethical governance that they deserve. These are but some examples of the UDM’s active role in national politics and the further consolidation of South Africa’s democracy. As our actions and words have proved, the UDM is a viable, trustworthy and reliable opposition party.
