Category Archives: Nalini Naidoo

The Witness: Our skin-deep democracy

http://www.witness.co.za/index.php?showcontent&global[_id]=70737

Our skin-deep democracy

Nalini Naidoo

PRESIDENT Jacob Zuma’s great cabinet reshuffle on Monday became a talking point about whether we now have a leader who is taking charge. Strangely, this bold step left me unmoved. Not because it wasn’t important or that it did not represent a major shift in our politics.

Instead, my mind was consumed by something that happened last Wednesday. It started off quite blandly with the editor instructing us to attend a talk in the boardroom on the new Press Code. Press ombudsman Joe Thloloe had flown down to Durban from Johannesburg and had driven to Pietermaritzburg to take us through the code. The session was interesting, made more so by the fact that the soft-spoken Thloloe had a quiet, commanding presence. He emphasised ethics in journalism and said such things as plagiarism not being tolerated. “That’s just stealing,” he added.

Later that evening, I met Thloloe again at a function at the Durban University of Technology (DUT). Here he spoke at the book launch of Comrades and Memsahibs, a collection of writings by fellow journalist the late Ameen Akhalwaya.

It was there that Thloloe said something that I haven’t been able to forget. Last Wednesday was October 19, a day 34 years after several Black Consciousness Movement organisations and newspapers such as the World and Weekend World were banned. It has become known as Black Wednesday. In a quiet matter-of-fact tone Thloloe said he remembered clearly where he was on that fateful day.

He, who grew up in Soweto and barely knew KwaZulu-Natal, was in detention in a police cell in Howick, where he had been for several months. Thloloe said the worst aspect of his detention was the drive down from Howick to Alexandra Road Police Station where his interrogation and beatings took place. It is hard to believe that this quaint Victorian building represents a torture chamber. I know of an ex-detainee who lives in Pietermaritzburg and still today will not drive past that building.

Anyway, Thloloe recalled the drive in the week of that fateful Black Wednesday. As usual this was a trip filled with trepidation over what form his torture would take. This time he was left untouched, with his jailer taunting him that if he ever got out of there his whole world would be changed.

He was told: “Your [Steve] Biko is dead, your editor [Percy Qoboza] is in jail and you have no job because your newspaper has been shut down.” Thloloe did not believe this: isolated in detention it was a situation he could not conceive of when Several months later when he was released from detention, it was a reality he was forced to confront.

A thought that has stayed with me ever since hearing Thloloe relate his story was what must have gone through his mind as he drove from Durban to Pietermaritzburg that morning. A drive that would have taken him past the intersection with Alexandra Road. In The Witness boardroom he spoke about ethics and fairness, integrity and honour, freedom of expression and the rights of individuals to hold their views.

In April this year Thloloe was honoured with a doctorate from Rhodes University. In his acceptance speech he paid tribute to family, friends and colleagues who shaped his life. He went on to say that, “sitting glumly among them are those who also contributed unintentionally to this shape — people like the security policemen who tortured me in lonely offices haunted by screams when I was detained under Section 6 of the Terrorism Act or under the Internal Security Act”.

At the book launch, Thloloe said that many of the current ministers in government went through similar experiences as he did. He pondered why this did not make them more determined not to imitate the actions of their former oppressors. In his Rhodes address he said: “The irony is that some people will swear that they believe in freedom of expression but in the same breath they will shout that we should jail errant journalists and ban them and their publications. This tells me that our democracy is only skin-deep as we regress easily to what the Nationalist Party represented.”

ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema may be currently experiencing this skin-deep democracy. He alleges that state agencies are being used to intimidate people from joining his march. We may not like Malema, but in a democracy he too has a right to protest. It is possible that such intimidation is happening, because it has long been experienced by social movements like Abahlali baseMjondolo that has found that its campaigns on behalf of the poor are little tolerated by the ruling party.

A cabinet reshuffle may be a start but what is needed now is a getting back to basics and defining the kind of democracy we want. Nothing skin-deep and no regression to the past.

Witness: Mannya makes explosive claims against Ndebele

http://www.witness.co.za/index.php?showcontent&global[_id]=25786

Mannya makes explosive claims against Ndebele
29 Jul 2009
Nalini Naidoo

SUSPENDED head of the KZN Agriculture Department, advocate Modidima Mannya, who faces dismissal after being found guilty of 16 charges in a disciplinary hearing, has thrown down the gauntlet to former premier S’bu Ndebele.

Yesterday he made public a letter he sent to Ndebele in February containing explosive allegations. These include a claim that prime coastal land earmarked for the Macambini/Dubai tourism project was to be sold for $1 to the developers. The project, which led to widespread protests along the N2, was said to involve the removal of over 8 000 families.

Mannya is challenging his dismissal in court, claiming that the disciplinary charges against him were “trumped up” to punish him for refusing to obey alleged “unlawful and illegal instructions.

He says: “I am writing this letter basically to appeal to your conscience for you to step down as minister.”

Ndebele is the national Transport minister, but was premier at the time the letter was written.

On the Macambini/Dubai project, which was mired in controversy, Mannya writes:

“Whilst in a meeting we were presented with a draft agreement. I raised a number of objections. Let me repeat some of the objections I raised in Dubai:

“•Provision was made for the provincial government to spend $30 000 (R300 000 000) per annum for the marketing of the project. I would never understand the logic of this. However, you would be aware of the provisions of section 67 of the Public Finance Management Act. A provincial government may not bind itself to any future financial commitment, denominated in foreign currency.

“•Provision was made for the land to be sold at $1. I am certain that you know that the land in question is tribal land and cannot be alienated. You also know that government is not the owner of the land. I do not understand why we could sell land we did not own.

•Provision was made for government to clear all settlements, graves etc. Mr Minister, I would kill, if need be, to protect my ancestral graves. Until then, I thought of you as someone who respects and understand our culture, heritage and the sensitivity of our cultural practices.

“Outside of this draft agreement, I was particularly required to give an undertaking that an environmental impact authorisation will be granted. This is not only illegal, but also illogical. An authorisation can only be issued once there is an application and it meets all the requirements.

“For your interest, when I further objected to this blatant corruption, I was told who was to be bribed and how much each bribe would be. Mr Minister, this whole thing is ethically, morally and legally reprehensible. I understand why you sub-contracted your responsibility to Mbanjwa to ensure my persecution.”

On the over-expenditure in the Agriculture Department under former head Jabulani Mjwara, the letter reads: “What still has to emerge is who else knew and was part of discussions which resulted in that over-expenditure. When this comes out, we will know and understand why, despite serious allegations of financial misconduct were levelled against him, you authorised a re-determination of his contract. Of course he later had to go to court to get his money.”

The letter goes on to raise several other allegations and can be read in full at www.witness.co.za

Logan Maistry, spokesman for Ndebele, said yesterday: “Advocate Mannya left the Eastern Cape provincial government under a cloud of controversy. He was suspended by former premier Sibusisio Ndebele in KwaZulu-Natal. He is now being dismissed by KZN Premier Zweli Mkhize. This in itself speaks volumes. All further queries should be directed to the KZN provincial government.”