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03 December 2020 | Story Andre Damons
The final webinar of the UFS Thought-Leader Series, presented in collaboration with Vrye Weekblad as part of the Vrystaat Literature Festival’s online initiative, VrySpraak-digitaal took place on Wednesday (2 December). Dr Max du Preez, Editor: Vrye Weekblad (top left) was the facilitator with Ms Magda Wierzycka, Chief Executive Officer: Sygnia Group (top right), Zingiswa Losi, President of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (bottom left) and Prof Ivan Turok, SARChI Research Chair in City-Region Economies at the UFS and Executive Director: Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), as the other two panelists.

The South African government must ensure that the COVID-19 vaccine is free of charge and that the most vulnerable and exposed in the country receive it first. South Africa cannot afford for anyone not to be immunised.

This is according to Zingiswa Losi, President of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), who was a panellist on Wednesday 2 December at the final webinar of the UFS Thought-Leader Series, presented in collaboration with Vrye Weekblad as part of the Vrystaat Literature Festival’s online initiative, VrySpraak-digitaal. Magda Wierzycka, Chief Executive Officer: Sygnia Group, and Prof Ivan Turok, SARChI Research Chair in City-Region Economies at the UFS and Executive Director: Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), were the other two panellists.

Progress gives hope

Losi said the news on the health front is hopeful because of the good progress that has been made with regard to developing vaccines for COVID-19. The progress that has been made with the economy also gives her hope.

 “As South Africa we cannot afford to undertake another mass lockdown; our economy, we believe, cannot cope with it. There is not enough available in the UIF or social security to cushion workers any longer. We would face the danger of public rejection if we were to go back to a lockdown.”

According to Losi if the government wants to rebuild the state, it needs to address its internal demons. Says Losi: “It cannot allow corruption and wasteful expenditure to continue to consume 10% of the budget. Bail-outs for state-owned entities are not sustainable. The government also needs to show the necessary will to arrest those who steal, and seize their assets.

“And we are saying the ANC must deal with its demons of corruption, factionalism, and mismanagement of the state. It cannot expect to continue to lead, while it itself is limping. Nor can it continue to take workers’ loyalty for granted. We are looking forward to all of us to be playing a pivotal role in shaping society not only 2021, but in fact in the future of our country,” concluded Losi.

No knight with solutions

Wierzycka says when you look at South Africa and other countries you need to recognise that this crisis is not like the global financial crisis. “This crisis has hit every single country in the world, which basically means that no-one is coming to our help. We are on our own. There is no white knight that's going to arrive with some solution.

“This is where it is so essential that we have some kind of economic policy certainty and political certainty, because the only way that we are going to manage our way through this is to attract foreign investment and job-creating,” said Wierzycka.

Investment in infrastructure is needed as it is the only realistic tool for mass job-creation. Tax breaks and incentives and funding to would-be entrepreneurs or small businesses should be encouraged, said Wierzycka, because those small businesses tend to employ five or 10 people, but these people effectively support 30 to 40 families.

“If it were up to me right now, I would call together the brightest minds in South Africa in a think-tank, completely apolitical, who would sit around a boardroom table designing strategies to get us out of this crisis because no-one is coming to help us.”

Leaders should be held accountable

Prof Turok said looking forward he hopes the local elections will see real choices offered to the electorate, a genuine democratic contest between ideas, different philosophies and different outlooks and different ways of addressing challenges.

“I hope these elections will give us a clear outcome, the civic leaders, I think that's really important. We want our leadership to be held accountable. We want our leadership to stand up and be clear as to what they stand for and be accountable to ordinary people. We want and need a national government to recognise the special important, special claim subsidy as crucibles of progress of social mobility,” said Prof Turok.

He also talked about urbanisation in Africa, saying the continent is the fastest urbanising continent in the world and that a billion more people will be living in cities in 30 years’ time.

According to Prof Turok, we must make sure that South Africa makes a contribution to this. “And that we ensure that this process, this transformation, is a productive one and creates jobs and livelihoods, rather than shantytowns. We've got to see cities as economic drivers. You've got to build on the opportunities of density, of social diversity around the world as critical elements of productivity of investment of innovation, and of economic dynamism.”

African cities, like Johannesburg, and Lagos in Nigeria, should collaborate on joint projects, share expertise to transfer skills, to support each other and to overcome the xenophobia we face in South Africa.

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News Archive

CR Swart Memorial Lecture: Mr Cecil le Fleur
2006-08-08

Khoe and San call for government to speed up policy dialogue with indigenous communities  

 Mr Cecil le Fleur, leader of the National Khoe-San Consultative Conference and member of the executive management of the National Khoe-San Council, has called for a national policy on indigenous peoples to protect the human rights and special needs of indigenous people in South Africa.

 Mr Le Fleur delivered the 38th CR Swart Memorial Lecture on the Khoe and San at the University of the Free State (UFS).  He commended the UFS for its serious approach to the Khoe and San and for initiating initiatives such as a research project on the Griqua in which various aspects linked to language, -culture, -history, - leadership, their role in the South African community (past and present) and the conservation of their historical cultural heritages will be covered.   

 “The policy dialogue with indigenous communities initiated by government in 1999 and supported by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), has been exceedingly slow, owing to political and bureaucratic problems,” said Mr Le Fleur.

 According to Mr Le Fleur the slow pace is also impacting negatively on the United Nations’ efforts to expand the international standards and mechanisms for human rights so as to include the special needs of indigenous peoples.

 “The successful adoption of a South African policy would probably have a major impact on the human rights culture of Africa and, more specifically, on the UN system,” he said.

 “South Africa has a powerful moral authority internationally and is willing to use this authority in multilateral forums. At this stage, however, South Africa’s Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) may not take an official position on UN instruments and declarations pertaining to indigenous issues, until the Cabinet has resolved its own domestic policy position,” he said. 

 According to Mr le Fleur it therefore came as a great surprise when the DFA brought out a positive vote in the UN for the adoption of the "Draft Declaration on the Rights of indigenous Peoples" in June this year, even before the completion of the policy process. 

 Policy consolidation in South Africa is the primary key to creating a new policy climate in Africa in order to protect the rights of indigenous peoples.  “The existing constitution of the Republic of South Africa is one of the most liberal on the continent, and embraces the concept of redress of past discrimination.  It already includes a clause (Section 6) making provision for the protection of language rights for Khoe and San peoples - the fist peoples of southern Africa,” he said. 

 “If South Africa can effectively integrate this ‘third generation’ of collective rights within an existing democratic constitution, this will send a clear message to Africa and the world that indigenous rights are a necessary component of human and civil rights in modern democracies,” he said.

 Mr Le Fleur proposed an institutional framework based on set principles that would satisfy the needs and aspirations of the Griqua and other first indigenous peoples in South Africa.  “The proposed framework was based on the notion of vulnerability as a result of colonialism and apartheid, which stripped us of our indigenous identity, cultural identity and pride as people.  This injustice can hardly be addressed within the existing mechanisms provided by the current text of the Constitution,” he said.

 Mr Le Fleur also proposed that the principles of unique first-nation status, as recognised in international law, should be applied in the construction of the framework of the constitutional accommodation for the Khoe and San. 

 Mr Le Fleur further proposed that the Khoe and San’s indigenous status in constitutional terms must be separate from the constitutional acknowledgement of their status as a cultural community, as envisaged in sections 185 and 186 of the Constitution of 1996.

 According to Mr Le Fleur, the suggested mechanism should make provision for structures such as:

  •  A statutory representative council for First Indigenous Peoples of South Africa at a national level;
  • a separate Joint Standing Committee on Indigenous and Traditional Affairs, in both the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces on which the Khoe and San can be represented;
  • a representative structure for the Khoe and San in the legislature of each relevant province; and
  • ex officio membership in the relevant structures of local government.

Media release
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Media Representative
Tel:   (051) 401-2584
Cell:  083 645 2454
E-mail:  loaderl.stg@mail.uovs.ac.za 
24 August 2006


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