WikiLeaks: ANC a 'complete mess'

Again, nothing really new here.  Just makes it clear to all...

WikiLeaks: ANC a 'complete mess'

JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA Feb 20 2011 12:33

The ANC is a "complete mess" and its young cadres have no interest in history, but simply want access to jobs and personal enrichment, according to United States embassy cable obtained by City Press through the whistleblower website WikiLeaks.

According to the cable, the ANC's Gauteng spokesperson Dumisa Ntuli told a US diplomat that crippling divisions were plaguing the ruling party.

Ntuli, who has denied discussing internal ANC issues with the US embassy, did not mince his words about the party, according to the cable, which is dated October 29 2009.

He reportedly said the party was deeply divided not only between supporters of President Jacob Zuma and former president Thabo Mbeki, but "along multiple other lines", City Press reported.

"There are die-hard Zuma supporters, the pro-labour people, the communists, the pro-Mbeki people and no one speaks for the same things," Ntuli is quoted as saying in the cable.

"Party leaders are seeking ways to restructure and unify the party so that younger members understand the history and values of the ANC.

"However, according to Ntuli these efforts are not going well and will only lead to failure.

'Jockeying for positions'
"He said: 'The younger cadres have no interest in the history of the ANC. They want access to jobs and personal enrichment.'

"Worse than the lack of interest in history, [Ntuli] claimed, is that they will not listen to, or respect senior officials."

Ntuli apparently told the diplomat party members were "mostly focused on jockeying for positions to be decided upon at the 2012 national congress".

He said: "The party isn't even focused on the 2011 elections."

Ntuli, who the diplomat came to regard as an Mbeki loyalist, said the "Zuma government will not come close to delivering" on the party's resolutions.

He said the ANC was concerned that it would lose to the Democratic Alliance in the Tshwane metro during the 2011 local government elections.

"We have big internal problems in Tshwane," he is quoted as saying.

He reportedly attributed the "problems" to "infighting over government positions".

Ntuli said this week that he had not seen the cable.

"I am just surprised, because I never had any meeting with the embassy about those issues," he told the paper.

On Saturday, Beeld newspaper reported that according to a diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks, ANC treasurer general Mathews Phosa told US ambassador Donald Gips on December 17 2009 that he was worried about "continuing tension" between the ANC and its alliance partners.

The conversation took place amid a bitter dispute between senior members of the ANC-led alliance.

A few weeks earlier, ANC Youth League president Julius Malema had described South African Communist Party deputy general secretary Jeremy Cronin as a "white Messiah".

This, after Cronin noted that Malema and others only thought of "bling" when they spoke about the nationalisation of mines.

Phosa said even though the "anti-communism" call in the ANC was increasing, the clashes had more to do with personalities than with anything else.

According to the document, Phosa told the diplomat: "Everyone talks about 2012. The league thinks Mantashe's roles as Communist Party chairman and secretary general of the ANC [are] in conflict with each other."

Phosa also revealed details of a closed meeting where Malema accused Mantashe of having a conflict.

Phosa said the ANC needed time to cool off, otherwise the 2012 party congress would be "worse than Polokwane".

Phosa said this week that he would not comment on the cable.

"As a lawyer I do not have to authority to comment on documents that I have never seen, and which have been written by a third party." - Sapa
Source: Mail & Guardian Online
Web Address: http://www.mg.co.za/article/2011-02-20-wikileaks-anc-a-complete-mess

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Why Africa won’t be the next Bric | beyondbrics | FT.com

Why Africa won’t be the next Bric

August 27, 2010 5:26pm

by Barney Jopson

Prompted by this week’s application from South Africa for Bric “membership”, the man who coined the acronym - Jim O’Neill of Goldman Sachs - asks in today’s FT whether Africa as a whole could become the next Bric.
On several measures he says the continent has a reasonably strong case, but he notes that its biggest economies would still need to raise their games on many fronts - and he misses some more profound weaknesses in the Africa-as-a-Bric idea.
O’Neill created the Bric acronym in 2001 as a neat way of grouping together four countries that shared the potential for generating rapid growth, attracting foreign investment, and reshaping the global economy.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, managing director at the World Bank, latched onto the idea of Africa joining the group in a speech earlier this year in which she sold it as a “trillion dollar economy”.

It’s high time Africa saw and presented itself as the fifth Bric, an attractive destination for investment, not just aid. This is realistic and within reach. As Nelson Mandela said, “It always seems impossible until it’s done”.

But before you can decide where to squeeze an “a” into the acronym, old Africa hands will jump in to say that it’s nonsense to compare it to a single country: not only is Africa a continent, it’s arguably the most diverse on the planet in terms of economics, politics, culture and the environment.
What’s more, 20 African countries have populations of less than 5m people. O’Neill is alive to that and focuses his discussion on the biggest African economies.

If you … look at the potential of the 11 largest African economies for the next 40 years (by studying their likely demographics, the resulting changes in their working population and their productivity) their combined GDP by 2050 would reach more than $13,000bn, making them bigger than either Brazil or Russia, although not China or India.

But even those 11 are highly diverse - including two of the biggest, Egypt and Nigeria. And due to Africa’s lamentable roads and railways, as well as its internal border restrictions, many of them function as isolated economic islands.
Afro-optimists would say regional trading blocs are changing that, but the reality is that only about 10 to 12 per cent of African trade takes place with other African countries, according to a study from the UN Economic Commission for Africa and others.
For those reasons, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to suppose that Africa’s biggest economies will follow the same development trajectories over the next few years, let alone the next few decades.
Yet it’s worth remembering that the Bric grouping initially attracted flak for not having any coherence either, but its runaway popularity with western businesses and investors has given the four countries more in common than they had before.
Funnily enough, one thing they share is a growing hunger for mineral resources from Africa (notably Nigeria, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Sudan).
But it’s doubtful whether any country other than South Africa has the right mix of factors to make it an attractive destination for serious western investment, across a broader range of sectors, which could rival that going to the Brics.
Earlier this year Shanta Devarajan, the World Bank’s chief economist for Africa, responded with a dose of scepticism to Okonjo-Iweala’s call:

The distinguishing feature of the Brics is that they are both middle-income and large. So it’s not clear how any individual African country can aspire to being a Bric. Countries such as Malaysia or Chile may be more appropriate models for most African countries.

To achieve their “2050 potential”, O’Neill says African countries need more macroeconomic stability, less external debt, a stronger rule of law, better education, (even) more mobile telephones, and a purge of corruption.
But it’s worth paying more attention to the parallel trends of population growth (seen as a good thing by many investors in India and Brazil) and job creation (a difficult task that most African governments are failing to manage).
Each of the Bric countries have their own pockets of poverty, and in some parts of Africa poverty is actually falling. But too many countries are producing more people than they can employ. And not only does that limit their potential as new consumer markets. It has ugly consequences in terms of crime, conflict and social unrest that can strangle economic growth.
Related reading:
Building Brics, FT
Is Russia the best Bric after all? beyondbrics
Why Africa won’t be the next Bric | beyondbrics | FT.com

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Mineweb.com - The world's premier mining and mining investment website Haven-seeking Europeans buy physical gold - GOLD NEWS | Mineweb

Haven-seeking Europeans buy physical gold

The Perth Mint has doubled capacity, while the Rand Refinery has experienced its highest sales in 25 years, all due to European investors seeking a haven in gold.

Author: Dorothy Kosich
Posted: Monday , 07 Jun 2010

RENO, NV -

The European debt crisis spurred physical gold sales on two continents this past week, as the latest U.S. Mint gold bullion coin went on sale at the open price of US$1,510.

Production of South African's Krugerrand gold coins soared by 50% to 30,000 ounces a week, the Rand Refinery said.

The Perth Mint in Australia said European buyers have accounted for 69% of new gold purchases.

In an interview with Reuters, Debra Thomson, the Rand Refinery treasurer, said, "Basically the sovereign debt crisis in Europe is behind this. There is a lot of demand especially from Germany; people are looking for gold."

Meanwhile the Perth Mint in Australia reported gold sales to Europe have soared. In an interview with Bloomberg News, Ron Currie, sales and marketing director for the Perth Mint, said European buyers accounted for 69% of gold-coin purchases last month compared to 51% a year ago.

"As soon as it was announced that the European Commission was bailing out Greece, the German population decided they'd better hedge their euros by buying precious metals," he added. "We had stock before this blip in the market, then it all went."

Controlled by the Western Australian government, the Perth Mint had doubled capacity in this past 18 months.

U.S. MINT INTRODUCES 2010 AMERICAN BUFFALO

In the meantime, the collector's version of the American Buffalo bullion coin went on sale this past week at an opening price of $1,510.

The bullion version of the coin was released April 29^th and has sold 135,000 one-ounce coins so far.

As of Sunday, the U.S. Mint reported 542,000 ounces in gold bullion sales, including 20,500 ounces sold since June 1^st.

The 2010 American Buffalo Gold Proof Coin can be ordered directly from the U.S. Mint.

Sales of this year's proof coin occurred much earlier than last year when the 2009 Proof Gold Buffalo was not offered for sale until October 29, 2009. Within five months, last year's proof coin was sold out with a total of 49,388 coins.

Mineweb.com - The world's premier mining and mining investment website Haven-seeking Europeans buy physical gold - GOLD NEWS | Mineweb

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