Numsa to launch new party

The National Union of Metalworkers of SA has scoffed at the ANC's "good story to tell" line.

Instead, Numsa said, the story of ANC rule was one of broken promises and unending poverty for most blacks. The union also plans to launch a new political party.

At a media briefing in Johannesburg yesterday, Numsa said it was not surprised that South Africa had been declared "the most unequal and socially violent place on Earth today".

Numsa asserted that President Jacob Zuma's State of the Nation speech failed to acknowledge that "20 years into democracy, virtually all black communities are at war inside themselves".

Numsa blamed the negotiated settlement, arrived at in the early 1990s, for failing to lay the foundation for the kind of "radical" economic transformation that would free black people from poverty.

The general secretary of the union, Irvin Jim, said the ANC and the SA Communist Party were conniving with "white monopoly capital" to stitch together "a neoliberal post-apartheid South Africa".

"Today, 20 years after the democratic transition, nothing better confirms the fact that, in all essential respects, the colonial status of the black majority has remained in place than [the fact that] of the 26million South Africans who live in abject poverty, 25million are [black]," Jim said.

The ANC has coined the catchphrase "We have a good story to tell" as part of this year's election campaign. The phrase has caught on among members of Zuma's cabinet in the past two weeks.

ANC ministers have pointed to what they claim are the ruling party's achievements in health, education and the economy since coming to power in 1994.

But Numsa believes that there is little to celebrate and a great deal to lament.

"We are not surprised that 20 years after the negotiated settlement very little real wealth has been redistributed.

"As a result, education, housing, water services, sanitation, electricity, distance from quality social and economic [resources] and so on continue to be disastrous problems for black people."

Numsa slammed Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan's Budget speech of last week, including his promise that social grants would be increased.

"The sweet promises contained in this Budget, including the pathetic increase in social grants, do not succeed in hiding the fact that this is a Budget designed to please South African white capital and its local agents, and imperialism and their rating agents," the union said.

The new party is to be called United Front or Movement for Socialism. It would be aimed at uniting the working class and mobilising around workers' issues.

Numsa reiterated its call for the immediate reinstatement of suspended Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi and for the convening of a special Cosatu congress to discuss this and other issues.