Thanks comrade, you brought oxygen to this issue. As you correctly pointed out, there is nothing wrong with the Green Paper but persons behind it. Then this gap must be bridged because we cannot waste time and energy dwelling on what cde Trevor "did and did not do" while the electorate awaits a comprehensive service delivery plan to arrest all loopholes existed in the past co-ordination of government programmes. In my view, the environment is different now and not also favourable for cde Trevor to impose the will of business in the same way GEAR was introduced. I agree with you that to dismiss the paper because of cde Trevor, Cosatu shot itself in the foot. In fact, COSATU elevated cde Trevor to a super minister with hidden powers to influence everyone in the ANC, including the President and NWC, thus to the level of being able to by-pass cabinet vetting process of the proposed plan. I doubt if such a person exists in the ANC. The suspicion has no basis and I charge COSATU to clear itself of all things of the past and broadly engage with the document. I can only hope that the SACP will integrate its response within the ambit of the NDR and fine-tune the service delivery planning process in the interest of the working class and the poor. Yours comradely Morgan Phaahla
"Sometimes, if you wear suits for too long, it changes your ideology." - Joe Slovo --- On Mon, 10/12/09, Mduduzi H Vilakazi <[email protected]> wrote: From: Mduduzi H Vilakazi <[email protected]> Subject: [YCLSA Discussion] National Plan [CU758] To: [email protected] Date: Monday, October 12, 2009, 4:11 AM Cde Morgan, In politics, not everything is seen and touched. There are lot of behind the scene that happens without us seeing. In my understanding, the green paper is fine with the limitations that all papers have. However, Cde Trevor openly spoke about the cowardice of private business to deal with labour and definitely that did not sit well with Cosatu and its affiliates. Secondly, in the office of planning is Trevor and Joel (Peter Mayibuye) who openly supported Cde Mbeki's third term which still are in the minds of some of our leaders. The green paper was developed by the two comrades and suspicion will always be with those who supported the current leadership on trust of those who supported the other list in Polokwane. Lastly, without raising a racial debate, Trevor is a man of colour who was reinstated by investors after he resigned in solidarity with then President Mbeki's recalling. This behavior is still fresh in the minds of some of our comrades. So Cosatu has taken advantage to also frustrate Cde Trevor who instructed private businesses to "frustrate" the workers. The lambasting of the green paper, in my view, has nothing to do with the contents or rather the purpose of the paper but a political way of making Cde Trevor feel the hit of labour. I must clearly state that it is correct for Cosatu to engage any policy paper that seek to shape the operations of government. However, to dismiss the paper, as it did, Cosatu missed a point of engaging the paper broadly. With Trevor or anyone else at the helm, government needs to restructure its planning. Cosatu should come up with better ways of planning (integrated) that is not similar to that proposed by the green paper. All those who soberly read the paper realized that it is not about an individual but about integrated service delivery planning. Cde Trevor will one day vacate that office, but integrated planning will still be the nerve centre of the Presidency. The role of Cosatu, its affiliates and other progressive organisations is to develop the paper to resembles what Polokwane mandated leaders to do. Dismissing the paper will not produce better results for society. I fully support the extention of the closing date for submissions to the paper. Maybe the SACP will provide clear challenges that the paper may have and seek to correct such. The SACP as a vanguard movement will correctly apply its tools of analysis in order to close the gaps in planning while protecting the plight of the working class in benefiting from the NDR. lets engage!! >>> morgan phaahla <[email protected]> 09/10/2009 15:44 >>> Comrades, without agreeing with anyone of you, I read the Green Paper several times trying find the bone of contention for cde Trevor Manuel to be singled out in such a manner that was uncomradely for a person elected to serve in the ANC-led government. Let's rather point out the issues than relying on the perceptions created by the tone of the speech and/or interpretations of the responsibility and powers accorded to the minister of national planning. The questions that need to be answered before other cadres get involved in what both of you are now, is: 1. What is the problem with the Green Paper? 2. Would the same problem exists had the minister of national planning be cde Ebrahim Patel? I'm raising these questions to make sure that we do not debate personalities but a process by which the planning will be done to achieve high level service delivery to better the lives of ordinary people. Let's engage maqabane! I remain Morgan Phaahla "Sometimes, if you wear suits for too long, it changes your ideology." - Joe Slovo --- On Fri, 10/9/09, sabelo gina <[email protected]> wrote: From: sabelo gina <[email protected]> Subject: [YCLSA Discussion] Re: National Plan [CU758] To: [email protected] Date: Friday, October 9, 2009, 8:38 AM Comrade Dominic, I am ok with your analysis of the Green Paper, however I am deeply disturbed by your anger against the General Secretary of Cosatu and that of Nehawu. Please stop being angry! If you care to know, you must read the resolution that was sponsored by Numsa which in the main raised similar things that you are raising. Please do not pretend that individuals do not leave imprints, the Numsa submission is clearly and justifiable worried about the frame of reference that the Minister draws, please get his speech that he delivered on the launch. Cedric Gina. On Thu, Oct 8, 2009 at 12:58 PM, Dominic Tweedie <[email protected]> wrote: [CU for Friday, 9 October 2009] What’s wrong with the Green Paper (linked below) on National Strategic Planning? It is a discussion document. The SACP has called for more time to discuss it. COSATU’s General Secretary has lambasted it. NEHAWU has lambasted it. But they have not made clear what is wrong with central planning. NEHAWU wrote (on Tuesday) that: “It is a known fact that the need for a high level planning and the planning commission and other modalities towards the establishment of the developmental state were agreed upon at the Alliance summit in October 2008. “NEHAWU therefore believes that it is only proper that the Green Paper should be considered in the impending Alliance summit and that this should take place prior to further processes in parliament and government.” Our concern in this series is with the pre-SACP-Special-National-Congress debates. The Green Paper has to be taken in this series. It is directly relevant to the SACP discussions. It is taken as the eighth out of ten, where the remaining two places are reserved for the SACP’s announced discussion documents on: “Industrial Strategy and Rural Development”, and on “The State and the Future of Local and Provincial Government”, (which should be sufficient to conclude the series, when they come out). We must discuss this Green Paper, and we must discuss it on its merits. Its greatest merit is that it makes a strong case for regular planning on three “time horizons”: 1-year Programmes of Action, 5-year Medium Term “Frameworks” corresponding to a maximum term of office between elections; and Long-Term, plus/minus 15-year, “Visions”. It makes this case in common-sense or bourgeois-bureaucratic terms, but given that limitation, yet it does not compromise with neo-liberalism. The necessity for planning has become orthodoxy. For those of us who have been banging the planning drum for many years past, this is a moment of deep joy. The Green Paper is not itself a plan, but it commits the Minister to produce the first plan within a year from now. It lays down the process by which the planning will be done – centrally, of course, but transparently, and not secretly or pre-emptively. The major de-merit of the Green Paper from a communist point of view is shown by its frequent mention of something resembling an imaginary table of weaknesses and problems. In this list you find women, children, the disabled and the old, and those with low “social status”- meaning the working class. Race, gender and lack of education are mentioned, but never “class”, or the “working class”. Instead, where race is mentioned you get more (balancing?) remarks about low “social status”, as if being working class is a disability or a disease that needs to be palliated, treated or cured. The class struggle may be the engine of history, the Green Paper seems to imply, but it can’t be considered in plans. The plans imagined in the Green Paper will be curative courses of treatment for ills. If this remains unchanged, the strategic plans produced by the process described are bound to fall far short of what is necessary. The historical measure of change and of progress is the rate of class formation. The basis of Chinese revolutionary planning success in the last sixty years, for example, has been their constant attention to class formation. (Even their few, now-long-past failures were a consequence of the same, correct, focus). None of the goods, whether public or private that the planning process is designed to maximise will be secure unless there is a steady and eventually overwhelming growth of the working class. By treating the working class as a “social status” problem, the Green Paper has the whole matter upside down, and will fail, if it does not get corrected. Without any positive class orientation, the planning process as outlined in the Green Paper will default back to conservative bourgeois utilitarianism. The determination towards planning that the Green Paper represents is a great leap forward, but it will come to nothing if the planning process is not infused with revolutionary class-consciousness. This is a job for the communists, and we must get to work on it. The objections of NEHAWU and of COSATU have not up to now revealed any matters of substance that could be a cause for conflict, but only matters of protocol. There is a great deal inside the Green Paper, too, about protocol and government etiquette. Whether these things are really crucial will become apparent, provided transparency is observed, and will be capable of correction. We as the Communist University have always dwelt in the public realm, where “a cat may look at a King”. So long as planning is a public process, and the communists are not lazy, then we should be able to get a result, with or without any elaborate prior protocols and laid-down pecking orders. While this series has been going on it has been debated, and there has been feedback, including one full-dress Economic Policy planning document for South Africa by Xoli Dlabantu (linked). Contributions that are conceived and executed at this bold scale make one extremely proud to be involved with this rolling-mass-university we call the CU. Many, many thanks Cde Xoli. [Graphic: Symbol of the former German Democratic Republic, a good friend to South Africa, founded 60 years ago this week] Click on these links: SA Government Green Paper on National Strategic Planning (14354 words) National Integrated Development Strategy, Xoli Dlabantu (3799 words) -- Blog at: http://domza.blogspot.com/ Communist University web site at: http://amadlandawonye.wikispaces.com/ Subscribe for free e-mail updates at: http://groups.google.com/group/Communist-University/ Library of documents (CU "CD") at: http://cu.domza.net/ [email protected] This message and any attachments relating to official business of the Mpumalanga Provincial Government (MPG) is proprietary to the MPG and intended for the original addressee only. The message may contain information that is confidential and subject to legal privilege. Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender. 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