Dear All, While we respect the rights of SASCO to conduct a post-analysis of the impact of the rollout of infrastructure spending, we need to provide clarity on some of the assumptions that are misleading. Yes the Capitalists class enjoy the profit but equally in a country like ours wherein the unemployment is as high as above quarter a century percentile. We cannot fold our hands and say Government do nothing. The infrastructure rollout, which by the way the world cup was just a piece is far from over. The Government of the ANC never than before have committed itself to addressing the backlogs on roads, infrastructure for energy sources (be it pipeline and new generation capacity as well as transmission backbone), Maintenance of the Distribution system, water supply and housing. When the ANC in a build up to 2009 National Election prioritise these and others was not to serve the interests of the capitalists class but to ensure the working class and the poor enjoy in accessing the promised Better Life for All. Now this fallacy that begin to assume that Government efficiency started only when FIFA wanted the deadline to be merged is unfounded. When we said " Working Together to Accelerate better Services" we were not referring to this event, which is gone and the legacy it left behind will leave forever in our hearts and generations to come. We are rolling out these capital projects to the tune of more than R800 Billion if we are to take the recent acceleration of Eskom Programme and the Loans and guarantees support package that as tax payers we ought to endure to ensure even in our spending, we take care of the environment we live in. Not because we want to make others happy but because we want our future generation to live better. Turning to the issue of Stadia and the framework for their spending, we need to look at the development not from a cost factor alone but also look at the Corporate Citizenship that these infrastructures brings in our Cities and Towns. We should be able to say as young people, there is no excuse that there are no infrastructure to inculcate the sports in our curricula, that there is an opportunity to develop the sporting codes in our respective towns to take advantage of these stadia. Take an example of Eastern Cape, wherein Bay United used to play in a ground that does not even meet our own local standards. The new stadium provide both soccer and Rugby franchises an opportunities to develop and for the NMMM to support such sporting codes. The same can be said about the Mbombela, wherein only Atlantis was a stadium of standard and only available to Soccer, when the Mpumalang Rugby Puma was not using it. Now there is competitions to use them efficiently. What is needed is not for us to cry about the impact of the maintenance costs on these stadia, is our participatory roles in the approval of Municipal Budget, which is detailed in the IDPs. Until such activism is brought back we will continue to cry for the escalation of cost to provide services, while we are so ignorant to the due process. Lets move away from chorus singers to real evaluators of the impact on the lives. The World cup did provides cushion for the unemployment during the construction phase, which we cant deny it. The world cup provides enough capital to the country on the Tourism and Hospitalities. A number of jobs were created during the constructions of Hotels, Roads and expansion of the highways, which will leave a legacy of easing congestion in our Roads. Our Airport system have improved and numbers of Jobs were created both in permanent and temporary basis. These are the positive spin-off of the world cup that we could not take away. Hence ours and particularly the role of SASCO should be to make sure that the 1 Goal Legacy is realised as it has bearing on the type of input that graduate from COSAS to SASCO. SASCO should be more concerned about the sustainability of the programme and other benefits that acrue due to the World Cup. SASCO should say good we have made it in the FIFA requirements, its time we made it in ensuring there are realised Universities in Mpumalanga and Northern Cape. This was, we will be able to link the 1 Goal Programme to long-term aspirations of the country's Higher educations. It is through the implementations of this long terms resolution on Higher Education, that we could easy some congestion to the Tshwane, Jo'burg CBD. It is through this diversified vision that the problems of overcrowding will be eased in Cities. It is through this sustainable vision that the cost of leaving in Cities will be eased on those who come from the Rural Areas as they can study from their local areas. It is within, this that I submit as a Convocant of SASCO that the World Cup was NOT a Waste of Money. As not only money matters,other factors do. I remain, Cde Tom Mutshidza >>> Gugu Ndima <[email protected]> 7/14/2010 11:50 AM >>>
SASCO PRESS STATEMENT: Soccer World Cup a waste of money 14 July 2010 South Africa has done tremendously well in hosting the FIFA Soccer World Cup defying doomsayers and Afro-pessimists. Rather than be proud, it is the pessimists who should be ashamed of themselves for even thinking that an entire nation would not be able to host a World Cup simply because it is located in the African Continent. Apart from the pride and joy we ought to ordinarily feel for hosting this World Cup we also ought to be particularly ashamed that we spent billions of public funds on stadiums that will immediately turn into white elephants after the World Cup and whose maintenance will be costly for years to come. It is not just wrong but naked carelessness to starve the country simply for the prestige of hosting a World event. Instead of wasting money on stadiums and other related luxurious infrastructure, we could have used the same money, energy, zeal and enthusiasm to provide water, electricity, houses and free education for millions of poor South Africans. Never before have we seen the state as efficient as when meeting FIFA deadlines, while on the other hand, carelessness, scapegoat-hunting and sheer laziness are the order of the day in providing basic services. We hope this efficiency would reflect itself in the manner in which basic services are provided. Now that the World Cup is over, it is clear that the mobilization of the South African population to support the World Cup bid on the basis that it will benefit the poor was based on a naked lie. The poor have not benefited financially nor have they enjoyed the honeymoon of the past month except on TV and Fan-Parks. Match tickets were far too expensive while street vendors could not even muster enough funds to sell products at the Fan-Parks. Once more, the capitalist class has accumulated, and the working class has been left empty-handed but has been frog-marched to celebrate accumulation of the capitalist class. For details Contact Mbulelo Mandlana (President) 071 879 3408 Or Lazola Ndamase (Secretary General)082 679 8718 -- Gugu Ndima +27 76 783 1516 -- Gugu Ndima +27 76 783 1516 -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . -- This message is subject to the CSIR's copyright terms and conditions, e-mail legal notice, and implemented Open Document Format (ODF) standard. The full disclaimer details can be found at http://www.csir.co.za/disclaimer.html. This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. MailScanner thanks Transtec Computers for their support. -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] .
