Business Day , 29/11/12

It is not incumbent upon all of us to know anything about history, but I must protest at Dr Thami Mazwai’s lack of knowledge. He approvingly cites China’s industrisation launch from 1952  as a model South Africa should follow. I presume he means Chairman Mao’s Great Leap Forward, which happened during this period, failed utterly and left millions dead.  It was one of the great catastrophes of the twentieth century. Only after Mao’s death was that country able to produce the double digit growth levels  of recent years, under Deng Xiao Peng.  It is no model for anyone except ideological psychopaths.

Dr Gavin Lewis

DA MPL Gauteng Legislature

"No skyfall after Mangaung"

Thank you for your sensible editorial comment, “Mangling Mangaung” ( FM  16/11/12-21/11/12), especially when you point out that we need to relax about Mangaung itself. I am getting tired of people talking  about by Mangaung in apocalyptic terms. In reality we will just have more of the same corruption and incompetence afterwards. The world will not come to an end, nor will South Africa’s future be irreparably damaged if Zuma is re-elected. It is the system that’s not working, not the thoroughly interchangeable politicians. It is ever the tendency of widely publicised  “thought leaders” (whatever that means) to grant themselves the arrogance to cry “après moi la deluge”. That is just self importance taken to extremes.  We should not allow politicians in all their pomposity to assure us that the sky is falling. South Africans fought apartheid for forty years. Seventeen years of ANC rule is a mere bagatelle by comparison. Yes we will inflict lots of damage on ourselves, most of it unnecessary. Yes Zuma will be as bad as he was before Mangaung. But that is no call to throw up our hands in despair. We will fight on , and justice will prevail. Nobody said it would be easy.

Dr Gavin Lewis

DA MPL Gauteng Legislature

The failure of migrant labour

Article in Fimancial Mail, 1/11/12

I read with interest the comment in your Editorial (FM, 26/10 – 31/10) regarding the implications of Marikana , and the need for the mining industry to  consider reforming the current migrant labour system.  It seems to me that the existing model of mining in South Africa is indeed unsustainable .

 

There is a need to relook at the migrant labour system to try and find alternatives to the long periods way from home in an all-male environment – perhaps shorter three months on, one month off work, so that mineworkers can tend to their rural families.

 

This would also alleviate them setting up second temporary homes around the mines themselves, resulting in unserviced and ultimately squalid shack settlements. Then there is the burden of sustaining two households instead of one on a limited income.

 

This in turn encourages an unhealthy reliance on money lenders. and to deep despair. One can only speculate as to how such factors fuel the rage of illegally striking miners and the high death toll.

Dr Gavin Lewis

DA MPL Gauteng Legislature
Spokesman: Economic Development
Deputy Spokesman: Finance