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Analysis: The girl salary funding should not go a approach of a nationalisation …

Publiziert 20. Mai 2012 |

Von News und Nachrichten Team

No one can dispute that youth employment in the country is a significant problem. Cosatu and the Democratic Alliance, who shed blood over how to solve the problem on Tuesday, certainly don’t. The ANC-led national government also doesn’t disagree and in February 2011 tabled a youth wage subsidy as a way to tackle youth unemployment.

In his “counter-memorandum” to the DA’s memorandum, Cosatu spokesman Patrick Craven on Tuesday identified some of the contributing issues to, and symptoms of, youth unemployment.

He said: “Our education system is in a crisis and it sidelines 400,000 young people who do not proceed with their studies after writing exams every year. Today, 95% of the people who are unemployed have no tertiary education, 60% of the unemployed have no secondary education. As a result of this crisis, 68% of the unemployed have been unemployed for the past five years or have not worked (at all) in their lives.”

Craven went on to say the trade union federation was committed to ending youth unemployment but felt the subsidy would only exacerbate the problem. On this the DA disagrees.

Launching the party’s Youth Subsidy Now campaign last year, Tim Harris, deputy shadow minister of trade and industry at the time and now the shadow finance minister, acknowledged that the subsidy isn’t a silver bullet. He believed, however, that in the short term it was a step in the right direction.

The DA launched the campaign when it became clear that the R5-billlion youth wage subsidy finance minister Pravin Gordhan announced in his 2011 Budget speech was unlikely to be implemented by 1 April 2012 because the National Economic Development and Labour Council was still debating the policy. Nedlac’s labour component, particularly Cosatu, remains unconvinced that the plan would have the desired effect.

Under Gordhan’s proposal, the government would for two years subsidise the wages of all full-time workers in the formal sector aged between 18 and 29, earning below the tax threshold of R60,000 per year. The subsidy would cover up to R12,000 in the first year and R6,000 in the second for each qualifying new hire. Employers would could only claim the lesser amount and only for a year for existing, qualifying workers.

Treasury believed this plan would subsidise 423,000 workers, including 178,000 as a direct response to the subsidy. By treasury’s estimates, the net effect, after accounting for those who would “fall out” of the labour market when the subsidy ends, would have seen 133,000 new jobs created by 2015 at a cost of R37,000 per job. This was far more cost-effective than any of government’s direct job-creation initiatives.

Priced also at R5 billion, the DA’s proposal is similar but offers a smaller subsidy (R3,600 per year) to a larger group, including individuals who hire domestic workers, child minders and drivers.

At the time treasury conducted its research, the subsidy had a target a group of approximately 2.4 million unemployed youths, so the longer-term impact on unemployment would have been marginal.Treasury, though, positioned the subsidy as one facet of government’s multi-pronged strategy (led by the New Growth Path) to tackle youth unemployment. It acknowledged that the strategy would not address structural inhibitors to job creation, nor would it bridge the huge gap in skills between what the education system produces and what the work place requires.

It was pinned, really, on the hope that once exposed to the labour market, some of those subsidised will stay in their jobs as government implemented longer-term plans to fix education and the other structural problems. Treasury also suggested it might scale up the plan if proved successful.

Enter Cosatu to the fray. Contrary to the demagoguery it sends out into the public sphere, the trade union federation has good arguments for opposing the subsidy. The first is perhaps moral and poses a question of fairness and social responsibility. Corporate South Africa is sitting on R520.5-billion in cash. They could plough this into new investments, products, services and businesses that could create jobs, but instead they leave it sitting on the sidelines, citing adverse conditions and uncertainty.

Cosatu asks: Why should taxpayers subsidise businesses in times of adverse conditions and uncertainty when they have the means to subsidise themselves and create jobs? In this inclusive, united South Africa, is business a fair-weather friend?

To that corporate SA would say they’re answerable to their shareholders who expect risk-managed returns. I would not be alone in suggesting perhaps they’ve not applied their minds enough.

Welcoming the new era of considering the environment, governance and society in corporate strategies, decision-making and reporting, judge Mervin King said, “If done properly, organisations will have to take a new look at themselves and their business models. Through the process of integrated reporting they will be encouraged to explore new and potentially innovative opportunities in their products, services, processes and markets.”

Of course, corporate South Africa is but one of this economy’s employers. As identified consistently in UCT’s global entrepreneurship monitor, South Africa has too few small, medium and micro enterprises and too few of them employ five or more people.

Cosatu’s other arguments – that the subsidy would exclude youths from constitutionally protected worker rights and would see employers substitute experienced, expensive workers for cheaper younger workers – are also partially valid.

The Labour Relations Act, the Basic Conditions of Employment Act and other labour laws give effect to the constitutional provisions to protect worker rights. These provisions are largely aligned with international labour standards, put forward by the International Labour Organisation, which South Africa has been ratifying.

Even the DA recently supported South Africa’s ratification of the standard on domestic workers, so it might appear incongruent to suggest labour laws have created an impediment to growth. Labour laws inhibit growth as much as environmental protection laws do. They are another constraint around which successful, sustainable businesses have learned to work.

In terms of the youth wage subsidy proposal, treasury tried to address Cosatu’s concerns with hope and logic.

“There is little business sense behind replacing good experienced workers who have demonstrated their productivity and value to a firm with an inexperienced, young worker whose productivity is unknown simply to gain a temporary benefit. In addition, regulations around the dismissal of existing workers establish a legal framework that prevents this kind of substitution from occurring,” the department’s Confronting Youth Unemployment discussion paper said.

The working paper also said employers would still have to comply with sectoral minimum wages, so younger workers would still be protected.

From this the subsidy appears a red herring, but a useful one. It asks questions of government, business, workers and opposition parties. It shows that sacrifices need to be made by all to tackle what is a complex problem. It also shows that no single answer exists and that stone throwing and marching do little to create jobs. DM

Confronting youth unemployment: policy options for South Africa [pdf], on National Treasury website.
The wage subsidy policy deadlock and South Africa’s youth unemployment crisis, on YouthWageSubsidyNow.org.
Youth Wage Subsidy and the Spectre of a Two-tier Labour Market, on NGO Pulse.

Photo: An angry COSATU supporter throws stones during a march by the Democratic Alliance (DA) South Africa’s main opposition party in Johannesburg May 15, 2012. The march by South Africa’s main opposition party on the headquarters of leading union federation COSATU descended into chaos on Tuesday, with police firing tear gas to disperse crowds of rock-throwing protesters. About 1,000 members of the opposition Democratic Alliance marched through downtown Johannesburg in support of a government plan to subsidize the wages of young people in a bid to ease chronic unemployment among the unskilled youth.The group was met by angry COSATU members who blocked the streets, sparking a violent confrontation that had to be broken up by police.REUTERS/Stringer.

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32 CT residents left destitute

Publiziert 20. Mai 2012 |

Von News und Nachrichten Team

Graeme Raubenheimer | 20 May 2012

<!–

Some 32 people have been left homeless, following shack fires across the Cape Town Peninsula.

–>

CAPE TOWN – More than 30 people were left homeless on Saturday, following several shack fires across the Cape Town Peninsula.

At least 12 shacks in Nyanga, Fisantekraal and other areas were gutted in the ground overnight.

The Cape Town Disaster Management spokesperson, Wilfred Solomons-Johannes, said they would assist the 32 people who were left destitute.

He said the circumstances surrounding the fires are unknown, but that police have launched an investigation into the recent spate of shack fires.

(Edited by Thato Motaung)

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Bomb explodes during UN revisit in Syria

Publiziert 20. Mai 2012 |

Von News und Nachrichten Team

By ALBERT AJI, Associated Press
–
29 minutes ago

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — A roadside bomb exploded in a restive suburb of the Syrian capital as senior U.N. officials toured the area on Sunday, the latest incident in which the unarmed observer mission has nearly been caught up in the country’s bloodshed.

No casualties were reported in the blast, which detonated about 150 meters (500 feet) away from visiting U.N. peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous and Maj. Gen. Robert Mood, the chief of U.N. observers in Syria. Journalists accompanying the team also were nearby. The explosion blew off the front of a parked vehicle.

A U.N. observer team with more than 250 members now on the ground has failed to quell the bloodshed in Syria, although it says it has had a “calming effect” in certain areas. Meanwhile, on several occasions, the team has come close to being caught in an attack, although there is no conclusive proof that it has been targeted.

Earlier this month, a bomb targeting an army truck exploded seconds after a convoy carrying Mood went past in the country’s south. Last week, a roadside bomb damaged the mission’s cars in a northern town just minutes after witnesses said regime forces gunned down mourners at a funeral procession nearby.

It was not immediately clear what the target of Sunday’s explosion was, but the damaged car was parked near a security checkpoint in the suburb of Douma. A security official at the checkpoint told the U.N. observers that gunmen had targeted two military buses in Douma earlier in the day, wounding more than 30 security agents.

“We obviously don’t have the specifics about what happened here this morning,” Mood said Sunday.

Ladsous gave a grim assessment of conditions for civilians in Douma, the scene of repeated clashes between security forces and rebels in recent months.

“The city (Douma) is completely paralyzed,” Ladsous said. “There is still some fighting taking place. … It’s absolutely imperative that all parties exercise restraint and don’t engage into any more fighting. It serves nothing.”

Activists reported heavy shelling Sunday in the town of Soran in the central Hama province. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights called on the international observers to visit Soran and investigate reports of more than a dozen killed.

In Damascus, opposition groups reported fighting overnight between government forces and army defectors in the district of Kfar Souseh, a hotbed of dissent against President Bashar Assad’s regime. The district is a high security area, housing the Foreign Ministry and several security and intelligence agencies. It has also been the scene of frequent anti-Assad demonstrations since the uprising began.

“Violent clashes broke out between rebel fighters and regime troops at a checkpoint in Kfar Souseh district,” the Observatory said in a statement. Both the Observatory and another activist group, the Local Coordination Committees, said explosions and gunfire were also heard in several other neighborhoods of Damascus.

Syrian rebels claimed in an Internet statement that they carried out a sophisticated attack that killed top political and security officials meeting in the capital. The posting claimed those killed included Maj. Gen. Assef Shawkat, the deputy chief of staff for security affairs; Defense Minister Dawoud Rajha; Interior Minister Mohammad al-Shaar and former defense minister, Hassan Turkmani.

Several of those officials reported killed subsequently showed up in public to refute the claims. Al-Shaar denied them at a press conference. Turkmani was interviewed by state-run Syrian TV in his office and said the claims were “blatant lies.”

Syrian officials rarely respond to statements issued by the opposition and their quick denials on Sunday were unusual.

The revolt against Assad’s regime started in March 2011 with mostly peaceful protests calling for political change. The deadly government crackdown led many opposition supporters to take up arms. Now, the regime is facing an armed insurgency targeting government installations, soldiers and security forces.

In March, the U.N. said that 9,000 people had been killed. Hundreds more have died since.

Clashes in the heart of the Syrian capital have become more common recently but are still rare compared to other opposition strongholds in Syria that witness deadly violence almost daily.

A cease-fire that was supposed to start last month has never really taken hold, undermining the rest of international envoy Kofi Annan’s plan, which is supposed to lead to talks to end the 15-month crisis.

World powers remain divided on how to end Syria’s crisis. The U.S. and other Western and Arab nations have called for Assad to leave power, and the U.S. and European Union have placed increasingly stiff sanctions on Damascus. But with Russia and China blocking significant new U.N. punishments, U.S. officials are trying to get consensus among other allies about ways to promote Assad’s ouster.

Also Sunday, an anti-Syrian cleric and his bodyguard were shot dead in neighboring Lebanon, where a spillover of Syria’s conflict has inflamed tensions and triggered deadly sectarian fighting in recent days.

The two were on their way to a rally in a remote northern Sunni region when they were shot. The circumstances surrounding their deaths remain unclear but the state-run National News Agency said Sheik Ahmed Abdul-Wahid and his guard appeared to have been killed by soldiers after their convoy failed to stop at an army checkpoint.

The deaths could add to the tensions between pro and anti-Syrian groups in the region, and there were fears of clashes breaking out as the cleric’s supporters blocked roads with burning tires in protest.

The Lebanese army issued a statement, saying it deeply regretted the incident and that a committee will investigate.

Clashes between pro- and anti-Syrian groups in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli left eight people and dozens wounded this week.

Karam reported from Beirut.

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Victim’s father regrets genocide of ‘Lockerbie bomber’

Publiziert 20. Mai 2012 |

Von News und Nachrichten Team

By Guy Jackson (AFP)
–
1 hour ago

LONDON — The father of a British victim of the Lockerbie bombing said Sunday he regretted the death of the only man convicted of the atrocity and expressed hopes his name would be cleared posthumously.

Jim Swire, a British doctor whose daughter Flora was killed in the 1988 bombing of the Pan Am airliner over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, said he had long believed that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi was innocent.

“It is a sad time, I think. I have been satisfied for some years that this man was nothing to do with the murder of my daughter,” Swire said.

“I think Scotland has a big question to answer as to why his verdict hasn’t long since been reviewed,” he told BBC TV.

But British Prime Minister David Cameron rejected calls for an inquiry into the conviction.

“This has been thoroughly gone through,” Cameron told British reporters at a NATO summit in Chicago. “There was a proper process, a proper court proceeding and all the rest of it.”

“I’m very clear that the court case was properly done and properly dealt with.

“Today is a day to remember the 270 people who lost their lives in what was an appalling terrorist act,” Cameron added.

A Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands convicted Megrahi in 2001 of the bombing which sent debris from the jet raining down on Lockerbie, killing 11 people on the ground and all 259 on board the jet.

Scottish authorities released Megrahi from prison on compassionate grounds in August 2009 because he had prostate cancer, a decision which caused outrage in Britain and the United States.

Cameron said on Sunday: “I’ve always been clear he should never have been released”.

Some have suggested the decision was taken to smooth the way for oil deals in Libya to be struck with British firms.

Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond argued that Megrahi’s death vindicated his administration — which can make decisions on justice matters independently of the British government.

His death “puts to rest some of the conspiracy theories which have attempted to suggest that his illness was somehow manufactured — today’s news confirms what we have always said about his medical condition”, Salmond said.

Swire, a member of the Justice for Megrahi (JFM) group, said the Libyan had been in great pain when he visited him in Tripoli in December.

“I think we both knew we were saying goodbye to each other,” he said. “His demise now has at least relieved his pain for him.

“From now on perhaps we can concentrate on trying to find out who did murder my daughter and all those other people.”

Swire said he was confident that Megrahi’s guilty verdict would be quashed.

“I think the verdict will be overturned because there is already sufficient information to make it untenable,” he said.

Swire revealed that in their final meeting, Megrahi discussed clearing his name.

“He still wanted to talk to me about how information which he and his defence team have accumulated could be passed to me after his death,” he told Sky News.

Megrahi dropped an appeal shortly before his release even though he was under no legal compulsion to do so.

The secretary of JFM, Robert Forrester, said Megrahi’s eldest daughter Ghada, who studied law in Scotland, has often signalled her intention to push for the appeal to be reopened after her father’s death.

Even if she does not do so, Forrester said Swire and other sceptical families could do so.

However, he accused the Scottish administration of obstructing efforts to shed light on the Lockerbie affair.

“The Crown and successive governments have, for years, acted to obstruct any attempts to investigate how the conviction of Mr al-Megrahi came about.

“Some in the legal and political establishments may well be breathing a sigh of relief now that Mr al-Megrahi has died. This would be a mistake.”

Salmond said the Lockerbie case “remains a live investigation”.

“It has always been the Crown’s position that Mr Megrahi did not act alone but with others,” he said.

Scotland’s top prosecutor and the head of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation visited Libya in April to assess the investigation.

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