SHOOTING THE MESSENGER
By Lenny Gentle, Sunday Independent, 22 June 2003
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The Minister of Water Affairs was vindictive in his article US Populists Wrong (Sunday Independent, 8 June) in which he tried to dispute the widely cited fact that some 10 million South Africans had experienced water cut-offs since 1994. The subject of the Ministers' ire were two North American researchers, David McDonald and John Pape who had cited the HSRC-derived figure of 10 million for water cut-offs in their book Cost Recovery and the Crisis of Service Delivery in South Africa. Much like a scatter-gun, Kasril's then fired randomly at a variety of targets hoping to score one accurate hit. So research conducted by other South African researchers, including one of ILRIG's, on the direct relationship between the KZN cholera epidemic and water cost recovery strategies pursued by government was now summarily declared invalid. And our former co-director John Pape (as the US fugitive James Kilgore was known in South Africa) comes under attack for a work he wrote called Down with Missionaries and Objective Academics.
The case of the HSRC figures for the 10 million South Africans has already been argued by David McDonald in the SI of 15 June and doesn't need repeating here. Except that Kasrils seems particularly incensed that they are North American. There are two issues at stake here. The one is about the right to criticise government about its stated commitment to delivery of social services no matter the nationality of such messengers. The second issue is an ironic one. If the US nationality of John Pape counts against him for exposing the poor levels of service delivery in South Africa why does our government cosy up to the US government in the WTO negotiations, side with US companies against reparations-seeking victims in US courts and why does it carry out the neo-liberal policies so beloved of successive US governments and embodied in their loving commitment to GEAR?
Kasrils is just wrong about a number of things in his SI article. The links between the spread of cholera in KZN and the state's neo-liberal policies of imposing strict cost recovery mechanisms onto poor communities for access to reticulated water are uncontested. They have been the subject of a number of studies and were the subject of media articles in South Africa. The DPLG itself in its Project Viability reports showed that in August 2000 in Ngwelezane - the epicentre of the subsequent cholera epidemic - extensive water cut-offs took place. Kasrils provides no evidence to gainsay those links.
Having got it wrong about the cholera epidemic Kasrils then proceeds to malign John Pape with a complete misreading of Pape's article. Did Kasrils actually read the article? Pape wrote the article specifically to attack those within the ranks of activists struggling against apartheid who simply saw ordinary workers as waiting to get the "word" from self-appointed missionaries, no matter how well-meaning. This was the stuff of debate in the labour movement and in service organisations in the 1980s. Johns' views about the need to learn from the experiences of workers are the subject of his article and found expression in his approach to trade union education over some 10 years in Southern Africa. It is this attention to genuine empowerment rather than merely "giving the line" that saw trade unionists rally to John's defence after his arrest as James Kilgore. ILRIG possesses letters of support from unions making precisely this point about him.
It is clear however that Kasrils vituperation is informed by a growing consensus internationally that privatisation leads to the sacrifice of service delivery and social goals to corporate profit. The tide of anti-globalisation struggles waged by the broad labour movement and new social movements internationally has put the early Thatcherite big-bang privatisation on the defensive. However the neo-liberal mania for private sector solutions has seen a broader approach to privatisation - one that COSATU and the municipal services union, SAMWU, have long critiqued. This approach is one where government embarks on one, or both, of two strategies. Either it withdraws from service provision and hands this over to a private company and then confines its role to that of an "authority" (this is one of the many forms of Private Public Partnerships promoted by government) or else it keeps a service in the public ownership but makes it operate as if it were an entity motivated by profit. One of the features of the latter is the addiction on the part of local government to strict cost recovery as local authorities have to implement service provisions on a commercial basis with declining national government fiscal transfers.
This approach to service delivery has seen millions of South Africa cut off from water and electricity services if they cannot pay. Under this system the Free Basic Water policy acts as a threat rather than a victory for poor communities - "You'd better keep within the 60 KLitre limit (and research has shown how poor families simply cannot stick to this limit) - or else face water cut-offs." The MSP, the HSRC and ILRIG and a range of research bodies have been examining the real effects of the policies of commercialisation of public resources and the application of commercial logic to local government services and we invite Kasrils to read our reports and respond seriously to the evidence that poor South Africans are being denied their constitutional rights.
In conclusion it is appropriate that we cite John Pape's misread (by Kasril's) article to speak to his views on the question of workers' voices:
"For the missionary, workshops are two things - a platform for personal views and an opportunity to win new converts. The missionary reacts to anyone with a different opinion as a 'troublemaker' to be crushed..
[On the other hand] It is dishonest to pretend we don't have opinions, but it is also destructive to use our views as a sledgehammer to hit people over the head. Sledgehammer tactics will silence differing opinions.From an educational point of view dissident opinions are very important to the learning process. People who come with a different position often promote debate amongst participants and force everyone, including the educator, to interrogate their own thinking more thoroughly."
Would that Kasrils' headed this advice.
Leonard Gentle is a researcher at the International Labour Research and Information Group (ILRIG) - an NGO servicing the labour and community movements