President Jacob Zuma

Zuma calls for swift, decisive response to African crises

South African President Jacob Zuma on Tuesday called for swift and decisive response to African crises.

“It is our firm belief that Africa can, and has the capacity and the means to act swiftly and decisively,” Zuma told delegates at the ACIRC Summit held in Pretoria. ACIRC stands for African Capacity for Immediate Response to Crises.

A glaring example of how Africans can together solve their problems was recently demonstrated in Somali, where the IGAD (the Intergovernmental Authority on Development) countries decided, after a long period talks, to solve the problem by driving out the insurgents or rebels, and installed a proper government, said Zuma.

“We have the capacity and means to act swiftly and decisively, together as African countries,” Zuma stressed.

At the African Union (AU) summit in May 2013, African heads of state and government called for the establishment of ACIRC.

This decision came about due to the realization that independent and swift African responses to crises that arise on the African continent could not wait while the building blocks of the African Standby Force are carefully being put in place, Zuma said.

The Chairperson of the AU Commission, Dlamini Zuma, has appealed to AU members to confirm their individual and collective commitment to ACRIC.

“In fact, we are here today to ensure the swift operationalization of the African Capacity for Immediate Response to Crises and to provide a framework for countries who wish to lend their voluntary support to do so,” Zuma said.

He said African countries cannot allow the ACIRC to be born through a lengthy process that would defeat its very purpose.

According to Zuma, the ACRIC summit aims to meet three objectives: to exchange views on efforts made to date on the operationalization of ACIRC; to update each other on the status of the pledges made to ACIRC; and to identify ways and means to effectively support ACIRC and hasten its operationalization, including through the establishment of a Working Group to develop proposals on the modalities for the operationalization of ACIRC.

In order to ensure African solutions to African problems, “we needed both the will and the commitment – within the framework of the African Peace and Security Architecture – to put in place an African Force that could respond to these immediate calls for intervention”, said Zuma.

He said African countries should achieve an outcome that, at least by the end of 2013, there will have a mechanism that can breathe life into the aspirations for African ownership and leadership in immediately and urgently responding to security challenges faced by this continent.

It is fully understood that the deployment of such a force will be squarely rooted within the prescripts of the African Peace and Security Architecture, and be guided by international law and practice related to the deployment of an international rapid reaction force, said Zuma.

He added however that the setting up of ACIRC is not to discard the duty of the international community, particularly that of the United Nations whose Security Council has the primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.

“Rather, the objective is to ensure that Africa contributes in a more active and substantive manner to collective security, as provided for in the United Nations Charter, in a spirit of partnership and burden sharing,” said Zuma. – globaltimes.cn

Zuma warns Africans against regime change

President Jacob Zuma says ideas to replace Africa’s democratically elected governments from outside the continent must be rejected.

The people of Africa must reject any idea from outside the continent, which would lead to regime change in an African state, President Jacob Zuma said on Saturday.

“Through the AU [African Union], the peoples of Africa must reject any idea from outside the continent, which seeks to foster an agenda of regime change,” Zuma said at the University of Fort Hare’s East London campus.

In a speech prepared for delivery at the university’s Organisation of African Unity (OAU) 50th anniversary lecture, the president said the replacement of democratically elected governments on the continent must be rejected.

“We must do everything we can to prevent Africa from being cheaply auctioned as a result of the ineptitude and lack of united action and resolve on the part of some of its leaders in safeguarding its vital territorial and sovereign interests,” Zuma said.

The mandate of the OAU had been to deliver African unity, freedom, independence, economic emancipation and development.

The achievement of these objectives still continued today under the banner of the AU.

The AU replaced the OAU on July 9 2002. The OAU was founded on May 25 1963.

Zuma said Africa was no longer a place devoid of hope as was believed in the past, with it now being one of the world’s prime regions of economic growth.

“Africa is one of the fastest growing regions in the world. It is no longer characterised as hopeless, but rather as a continent of hope and opportunity,” he said.

The economic emancipation of the continent, as envisaged by the OAU and AU, could be best attained through economic integration, he added. This would enable Africa to grow its markets, allow for more diversification, and encourage the optimisation of resources.

Integration would help lower transport costs, and ensure people, goods and services were able to move effectively and efficiently across the continent, according to Zuma.

For integration to be achieved, providing the needed infrastructure was key, he said.

“Roads, bridges, rail lines, pipelines, power plants, ICT connectivity, cables, ports, and water-ways are the underpinning arteries of growth,” Zuma said.

Africa’s people, including those who lived outside its borders, also had to recognise that they needed to contribute to its development, he said.

“Beyond this, Africa cannot develop if the continent is not peaceful, and there cannot be peace without development as the two are indivisibly intertwined,” Zuma said.

“The peace and security efforts that the African Union is championing in the continent are important and should be supported by every member state.”

Zuma said Africans should continue to think globally, beyond the confines of the continent.

“We want to be part of the UN Security Council. We want to see an urgent transformation of global economic institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund,” he said. – Sapa

Agang leader bragging about own fortune, challenges Zuma

Ramphele with the headgear that landed het the World Bank job — Ramphele with the headgear that landed her the World Bank job

Agang SA leader and ex-World Bank co-chair Mamphela Ramphele called on President Jacob Zuma to disclose his personal finances.

“I call upon President Zuma to publish his accounts immediately. What is there to hide?” she asked reporters in Johannesburg. “South Africans deserve a president that sets a good example for the rest of the country to follow.”

With each passing day suspicion about his integrity mounts.

“President Zuma has used a convenient technicality to sidestep this requirement. From his inauguration… the president has dodged the issue for over 1,565 days to date. With each passing day suspicion about his integrity mounts,” Ramphele said.

She said she was disclosing her own financial affairs for the country to scrutinise, in line with the need for accountability, and to set an example for Zuma.

Ramphele said her net worth as of June 27 this year was R55,436,063.

She had shares worth R1.38 million with Anglo American, Gold Fields, Sibanye Gold, and the PTI Select Managers Fund. Her primary residence in Camps Bay, Cape Town, was valued at R10m. A total of R1,146,139 was in retirement annuity and R1,574,064 in a provident fund. Her family trust held R30m and her investment trust R10.9m.

“My income for the tax year ending 28 February 2013, was R346,000 – a sizeable drop from previous years due to my resignation from all board commitments… ahead of my entrance into politics.”

Ramphele said her wealth would not distance her from South Africa’s poor.

“I am one of many leaders of this country, as with [former] president [Nelson] Mandela, who was not poor,” she said. “Being comfortable or having a measure of wealth is not a barrier to linking with poor people. What is a barrier is the abuse of power and stealing from poor people as this government has done consistently.”

President Jacob Zuma has responded to Agang SA leader Mamphela Ramphele’s call for him to disclose his personal finances.

In a statement from The Presidency on Wednesday evening, Zuma said his financial status had been recorded by the Secretary of Cabinet, according to stipulations made in the constitution.

“The Constitution of 1996 and the Executive Members Ethics Act, 1998, prescribe the nature, content and form in which members of the Cabinet and the Executive Councils disclose their financial interests annually. Members of the National Executive of Government submit their disclosures to the Secretary of Cabinet who maintains a register. The President therefore submits his disclosure annually to the Secretary of Cabinet,” the statement said. – Sapa

Zuma signs Land Use Bill

The Rural Development and Land Reform Department says the signing of the Spatial Planning and Land Use Management Bill into law will ensure that municipalities develop their own policies in line with government’s objectives.

President Jacob Zuma signed the Act into law on Monday. The Department’s Director-General Mdu Shabane says it took 10 years to finalise the legislation, which is aimed at doing away with the previous apartheid segregated spatial planning of land which separated black and white South Africans.

“We are very excited because there is a big void right now in various parts of the country as there is currently no framework legislation,” Shabane says. He says the new law will also speed up land redress.

“So this act comes at a good time where we are marking the centenary of the 1913 Natives Land Act which created spatial apartheid. The act will assist the local and provincial spheres of government to develop their land use management skills to reintegrate society,” Shabene says.

Zambia’s ethnic worries

Great Scott, it's a white face! — Great Scott, it’s a white face! Guy Scott with President Sata (left)

Zambia recently woke up to a story in state-owned media that a group calling itself Tongas Under Oath had killed two people belonging to President Michael Sata’s ethnic group, and was now in the process of removing settlers from the ethnically Tonga Southern Province. However, the story did not wash with the citizens who simply viewed it as an attempt by the ruling Patriotic Front (PF) government to clamp down on the opposition United Party for National Development (UPND).

Zambia’s third largest opposition party is led by Hakainde Hichilema, a Tonga who has been very critical of the Sata government. And as is often the case in Zambian politics, Hichilema is the latest in a line of fearless opposition leaders whose increasing popular support is likely to result in electoral success.

Prior to the release of the letter allegedly written by the Tongas Under Oath group, Hichilema was arrested and charged after he claimed that the PF government was planning to send youths to Sudan to train as militias. A few days later, the opposition’s headquarters in the capital, Lusaka, were searched by the police looking for seditious materials.

They did not find any but a few days later a far more sinister letter about an assasination plot was sent to President Sata with a date stamp from Mazabuka, a town in Southern Province.

No one was ever arrested in the Tongas Under Oath terror plot however, since President Sata himself admitted that the supposedly incriminating letter was not authored in the Southern Province, but in Lusaka.

Despite Zambia’s obvious ethnic struggles, the white British Zambian Vice-President Guy Scott said recently in an unusually frank interview: “The South Africans are very backward in terms of historical development. I hate South Africans… actually they’ve been the cause of so much trouble in this part of the world.”

The comments ruffled feathers on social media and appeared to threaten relations between the former liberation struggle allies.

During the interview in Lusaka, Scott mocked South Africa’s membership of the Brics developing economies, compared President Jacob Zuma with FW de Klerk and opined: “I have a suspicion the blacks model themselves on the whites now that they’re in power. ‘Don’t you know who we are, man?'”

He also defended the Zimbabwean president, Robert Mugabe, and spoke out against Zuma’s attempts to mediate in that country on behalf of the Southern African Development Community.

Recalling a meeting between Mugabe and the Zambian president, Michael Sata, Scott said, without irony: “Michael the other day was saying, ‘You have to get this thing sorted out among yourself, you don’t want to go to SADC – it’s a new kind of colonialism’.”

The Daily Maverick’s Simon Allison quickly came to Scott’s rescue and tried to defend his strange comments. – ISN/ The Guardian

SA’s nuclear war heats up

Government denied on Friday that a nuclear committee was restructured to remove Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe.

“Government has noted misleading allegations by the Mail & Guardian on the restructuring of the National Nuclear Energy Executive Co-ordinating Committee (NNEECC), and dismisses the statements as devoid of truth,” acting government spokesperson Phumla Williams said.

According to a report in the publication President Jacob Zuma “quietly” replaced Motlanthe and took over as the body’s chair.

This was “further downgrading” Motlanthe after he lost his bid for the ANC presidency last year.

The article reads: “Zuma is now firmly directing what is expected to be the largest, most complex tender process in South African history. At stake is the development of new nuclear power plants, potentially worth up to a trillion rand.”

Zuma was “courting” the Russians with meetings where nuclear co-operation was high on the agenda, it said.

Williams said the NNEECC was set up in 2008 to lead, monitor, and ensure oversight of implementation of the country’s nuclear energy policy.

It had been restructured to improve effectiveness. In April Cabinet approved further restructuring, with the support of the Nuclear Energy Technical Committee.

The revised committee was chaired by Zuma and comprised the ministries of energy, public enterprises, finance, state security, defence, and international relations. The committee was reduced to strengthen its efficiency in decision-making.

“Government dismisses suggestions that the restructuring was an attempt to remove the deputy president from the structure,” she said.

It was mischievous to suggest that diplomatic relations between South Africa and Russia were linked to the country’s energy plans.

“Such an allegation is baseless, as South Africa is a member of the [Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa] bloc and is bound to have meetings with its counterparts as and when it is required,” Williams said.

The review of Cabinet committees was an ongoing process and attempts to read anything into them was “pure mischief”. – Sapa