A victory on the
Wild Coast
SHELL WILL NOT BE
bouncing sonic waves
from the sea floor off the
Wild Coast any time soon.
The Makhanda High Court
said the decision by the
Department of Mineral
Resources and Energy to
permit Shell to explore off
the coast was unlawful.
And the line up in the case
was instructive – on one side Shell and the
Department; on the other side the affected
communities. So yet again the DMRE lines
up with capital against the wishes and
interests of the people.
Nonhle Mbuthuma, spokesperson
for the Amadiba Crisis Committee, was
quite clear about its significance: “this
victory is not just a victory for Wild Coast
communities and making our voices
heard. This is a victory against capitalist
extraction and destruction of our future...
This is about protecting the planet and the
whole of humanity.”
Transnet strike?
IT’S NOT SURPRISING THAT SATAWU
described Transnet’s wage offer as an
“insult”. An increase of 1.5% when
inflation is running at 7.8%, according to
Stats SA. We often say that it is workers
who are asked to pay for the mistakes
of the ruling elite, as well as for every
downturn in the economy. But there can’t
be a clearer example than this. Transnet is
seriously asking its workers to take a wage
cut of 6.3%. That’s what a 1.5% “increase”
means with inflation at 7.8%.
The ANC government has
thrown away billions on its corrupt
mismanagement of SOEs. And now the
workers must pay. We extend our solidarity
to the workers of Transnet in their struggle
to reject this super-exploitation.Food price inflation
sky high
AND THAT INFLATION MEASURE OF 7.8%
masks an even worse reality. StatsSA looks
at an average basket of goods across the
income spectrum. So it includes a lot of
items that ordinary workers never buy.
The Pietermaritzburg Economic Justiceand Dignity’s (PMBEJD) Household
Affordability Index (HAI) strips away all
of those irrelevant items. It looks at what
general workers actually buy.
And the price of those goods went up
by 12.6% in August compared to the same
time last year. That 12.6% is not going to
be covered by the 1.5% being offered by
Transnet, or the 3% being offered in the
public sector wage negotiations. Is it any
wonder unions are rejecting these insulting
and absurd offers?
PMBEJD reckons that, to get by,
a general worker will have to spend
46.8% less on food than the “minimum
nutritional basket of food for a family of
four”. In simple language, they will have
enough money only for half what they
need.
That is what the Minister of Finance
wants to impose on working people. When
he talks about stabilising the national
finances, it’s off the back of destabilising
the personal finances and therefore the
nutrition of ordinary workers.Eskom and municipalities
WE SOMETIMES THINK OF THE PROBLEM
that Eskom has with municipalities as a
problem with the smaller municipalities.
Those with very little if any sources of
revenue apart from selling electricity. Not
so. At the end of August, Tshwane metro
had missed its deadline to pay Eskom R1.
billion for bulk purchases in July. R1.
billion remained outstanding. Mangaung
metro, under administration, was unable
to pay at the end of August. And Ekurhuleni
metro is only paying its balance two weeks
late. That’s three out of the eight Metros –
the biggest municipalities in the country. It
becomes clearer and clearer that this is not
a sustainable model for electricity.Update on Twitter
IN AMANDLA! 82 , WE EXAMINED A SHAKE-UP
in the micro-blogging ecosystem as
Elon Musk seemed set to buy Twitter.
Meanwhile the appearance of inter-
operable alternatives such as Mastodon is
enabling everyone from Trump to teenage
anarchists to launch their own platforms.
While all this continues, a dramatic new
turn is of particular concern to activists:
a former Twitter employee has turned
whistleblower and has alleged not only
endemic negligence in Twitter’s protection
of user data, but active infiltration of its
staff by security operatives of several
nations, resulting in jailing of activists.
Peter Zatko was already a high-
profile “white-hat hacker”(one who helps
expose weaknesses in platforms’ security)
when he was hired by Twitter to be its
chief security officer. He is better known
by his “handle”, Mudge. He says when he
arrived, he found such a chaotic situation
in terms of cybersecurity and such a lax
corporate culture with respect to users’
personal data, that he resigned within sixHeavy rain in Antananarivo, capital of Madagascar,
in January this year, killed 10 people and made
more than 12,000 homeless. Madagascar is one
of 10 countries identified as the worst climate
hotspots. Seven of them are in Africa.