SA plays Father Christmas to Socialism

South Africa’s ruling party’s obsession with socialism and its positioning of South Africa within the socialist internationalist fold is far from over. In two separate incidents this past week the South African government and one of its agencies have dished out close to R1.5-billion in goodwill money to dubious socialist causes, despite various budgetary constraints and there being many more deserving and pressing causes at home, writes Stef Terblanche

In the one development – in what was more of a goodwill PR exercise than a sound economics or trade-based decision and probably has very little to do with Christmas given Cuba’s communist orientation - the government announced it was writing off Cuba’s R1.1-billion debt it owed South Africa while extending a further R310-million in credit and assistance to Cuba.

In the other development the Presidency and the National Lottery Board announced they would be jointly funding the R69-million week-long party of the 17th World Festival of Youth and Students in Pretoria, an event of communist and socialist youth organisations from around the world.

The 17th World Festival of Youth and Students is being hosted by the South African National Youth Development Agency (NYDA) and is a showcase event for the floundering NYDA and the ANC Youth League. The latter’s president, Julius Malema, attaches great importance to it and earlier this year visited a previous host of the festival, Venezuela, as part of the planning for the event. Malema also sees it as a platform to further his call for the nationalisation of South Africa’s mines, a topic also raised during his Venezuela trip.

The festival is organised by the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY), an international organisation of 270 socialist youth organisations from 130 countries that was founded in London in 1945 and is recognised by the United Nations as an international youth non-governmental organisation. For many years the WFDY was considered to be a front for the Soviet Union’s KGB, with a former KGB head, Alexander Shelepin, having been deeply active in the WFDY for many years. Apart from Venezuela, the World Festival of Youth and Students was previously held in Pyongyang, North Korea and Havana, Cuba among others.

Among the leading member parties that will be attending the event in South Africa are the ANC Youth League, the Bolivian Communist Party youth wing, the Zanu-PF Youth League from Zimbabwe, the Kim II Sung Socialist Youth League of North Korea, the Students Democratic Front of Burma, the Communist Youth League of China, the Russian Communist Party youth wing, and the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union of Vietnam. The theme of the festival, which runs from December 13 to 21, is “Let’s defeat imperialism”.

Despite being heavily involved and despite the mileage it will get from the event, the South African NYDA will not be contributing any of its own funds to the event. "There will be no tampering with the NYDA budget,” NYDA executive chairperson Andile Lungisa told a media conference at the agency's headquarters in Midrand recently.

The NYDA initially had wanted the South African government to bankroll the week-long jamboree to the tune of R340-million, but this figure was whittled down to R69-million by moving the event from Johannesburg to Pretoria and having a university accommodating the delegates. Now the Presidency will be providing R29-million while the National Lottery Board will be providing R40-million. However, there are concerns that the event will still end up costing far more than the budgeted R69-million and that the government will foot the bill.

This has raised the ire of opposition parties with the Democratic Alliance (DA) which said it was astonished” that the Presidency was funding it and expressed its “dismay at the Zuma administration's support for this anti-democratic conference”. The DA also said the NYDA is a public entity that is mandated to act in an impartial manner to advance the interests of all of South Africa's youth. The party called the youth festival a “young totalitarian conference” that answers none of the needs of South African youth, nor promotes job opportunities or skills training to the unemployed and will “simply allow members of the most anti-democratic youth leagues in the world, from Zimbabwe to North Korea, to network”.

The National Lottery Board certainly seems to be going beyond its mandate on this one. It has been severely criticised in the past for making deserving charities and organisations wait indefinitely for contributions, as well as for the small amounts allocated in various deserving causes and for ignoring others.

In 2006 National Lottery Distribution Fund board member Sershaan Naidoo told the Arts and Culture Portfolio Committee of Parliament that allocations from the Fund were made to reconstruction and development programmes (RDP), sports and recreation, arts culture and heritage, charities and that the main priority areas were arts, heritage and the environment, and various sub-areas.

The criteria for allocations were that they should be in the priority areas, assist with equity and redress, nation building, job creation, skills transfer and promote partnerships. It is by no means clear in which of these – if any – categories the 17th World Festival of Youth and Students falls.

In the other development this past week, opposition parties and other commentators also raised their concern over the government’s decision to write off Cuba’s R1.1-billion debt to South Africa and extend a further R310-million in credit and assistance. The DA said “this enormous financial injection raises questions about the policy priorities of the Zuma administration”. The party said it will request early next year that the Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Maite Nkoana Mashabane, appear before Parliament to explain “what foreign policy objectives are served by supporting Cuba in this manner”.

The government will not be able to say it is furthering trade objectives because Cuba is not an important trading partner of South Africa and lacks the capacity to become one in the foreseeable future.

Total South African exports to Cuba for the year  amount to a paltry R1-million. Cuba embraces a strict socialist regime in all its affairs, is a totalitarian state and has a failed economy. The only possible benefit is better relations with Cuba within the context of the international socialist fraternity.

This comes at a time when the South African government is still footing the bill of the ravages of the recent recession, its income has been reduced, its budget has been put under strain by the increased public sector wage bill following the strike, and when many other restraints have been placed on its financial capacity.

(Stef Terblanche is an independent freelance writer and publisher of The Monday Briefing)