The departure of a number of good ANC people to private business over recent years makes me wonder if there is not a capitalists co-ordinating group. Well-targeted sugar coated bullets create less turmoil than the one that killed Chris Hani.
Chris Burford
London.
> SOUTHSCAN
>A Bulletin of Southern African Affairs
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>===========================================
> Vol. 13/23 13 November 1998
>===========================================
<Large snip>
>SA politics (SouthScan v13/23 13 Nov 98): ANC economist makes
>sudden move into business
>
>In a move that could be less innocent than it appears, the African
>National Congress has re-deployed another of its top figures into the
>corporate sector. Chief party whip Max Sisulu last week joined state-
>owned arms manufacturer Denel as deputy chief executive, following a
>cabinet discussion two days earlier.
>
>Observers were surprised by the announcement of his sudden relocation,
>the reasons for which were not immediately clear. As party whip, Sisulu
>had performed admirably, garnering the respect and trust of colleagues.
>More significantly, perhaps, he had also become a prominent actor in a
>committee established to review government's economic policies, the
>Economic Transformation Committee (ETC). Sisulu headed the body
>since January and last month drafted and presented on its behalf a paper
>critical of current economic policies.
>
>Tabled at a National Executive Committee meeting of the ANC last
>month, the paper drew on critical appraisals and mildly heterodox
>remedies drawn up by Sisulu, the National Institute of Economic Policy
>(NIEP) and ANC economic thinkers (SouthScan v13/22 p169).
>
>It characterised the current financial crisis as a global capitalist crisis
>rooted in a burgeoning trend of overproduction since the early 1970s and
>argued that SA had, in the current climate, more room to deviate from
>the 'Washington Consensus' than at any point since 1994.
>
>According to one of the participants, the paper visibly displeased Finance
>Minister Trevor Manuel and Deputy President Thabo Mbeki, but met
>with broad approval from many other NEC members, notably those also
>belonging to the SA Communist Party and Cosatu (the Congress of SA
>Trade Unions).
>
>Some observers have therefore linked Sisulu's re-deployment to these
>cautious challenges from the ETC under his leadership. But ANC sources
>said Sisulu had or some time been indicating his desire for another
>position - either in one of the economic ministries, in business or in a
>parastatal. Sisulu, one of the few top ANC figures with economics
>training, was viewed by the Left in the ANC and its tripartite allies as a
>possible supporter in their bid to change economic policy. Those hopes
>seemed answered by the more combative positions adopted by the ETC
>under in recent weeks.
>
>The son of veteran activists Walter and Albertina Sisulu, Max Sisulu has
>a masters degree in political economy. Armed with a masters degree in
>public administration from the Kennedy School of Government at
>Harvard University, he helped establish the ANC's economics
>department and was active in devising ANC economic policy in the early
>1990s. After 1994, however, he appeared to play a less than prominent
>role on that front - until being drafted onto the ETC.
>
>He is a member of the ANC's national executive, and chaired
>parliament's committee on the reconstruction and development
>programme until the end of 1996.
>
>Sisulu joins the growing ranks of top ANC figures deployed into the
>business sector - including former ANC MP Saki Macozoma (who now
>heads Transnet), former ANC secretary-general Cyril Ramaphosa, and
>former Gauteng premier Tokyo Sexwale.