The Presidency

Intervention by His Excellency, President Jacob Zuma, at BRICS and BIMSTEC Leaders Outreach Summit, 8th BRICS Summit, Goa, India

16 October 2016

Your Excellencies, leaders of the member states of BRICS,

Your Excellencies, leaders of the member states of BIMSTEC,

Honourable Ministers and distinguished delegates,

 

I wish to convey our sincere appreciation to Prime Minister Modi, for enabling us to engage with the honourable BIMSTEC Leaders.

 

BIMSTEC members are all friends of South Africa and we enjoy strong and cordial relations.

 

I appreciate the continuation of our established tradition to engage like-minded countries such as BRICS and share views with partners facing similar developmental needs.

 

The theme of this meeting demonstrates that we have various opportunities to reinforce our collaboration commencing with stronger coordination in appropriate global fora.

 

The traditional ties of solidarity that many of our countries forged at the Bandung Conference in 1955, underpins our shared history of solidarity with BIMSTEC members.

We share the many of the objectives of the BIMSTEC Group.

 

These include creating an enabling environment for rapid economic development, accelerating economic growth and social progress and in supporting one another in the form of training and research facilities.

 

In the regional context, Africa considers its Regional Economic Communities as its building blocks to also fast-track the Africa Union’s economic integration agenda.

 

Excellencies,

 

We live in a world of remarkable technological progress. However, we experience growth which is not necessarily inclusive and does not adequately address and reduce inequalities.

 

Against this background it is vital that countries and regional organisations cooperate to find solutions and innovative ways to address objectives which BIMSTEC has also identified as being core priorities.

 

In the bilateral context, growing trade and investment between the nations of BRICS and BIMSTEC will provide us with the means of creating further employment opportunities.

In this regard, we need to identify what barriers to trade currently exist between us as well as considering a reduction in tariffs and the expansion of infrastructure links.

 

Without the necessary road, rail, air and shipping links, enabling our connectivity, any opportunities to growing our trade figures cannot be exploited to its full potential.

 

As an African Union champion for infrastructure development, I can inform you that much progress has been made in improving transport links across the Continent and that this has had a positive impact on intra-Africa trade.

 

In this regard, South Africa provides an excellent link to the region which the member states of BRICS and BIMSTEC can utilise.

 

The expansion of sea links and the development of the Blue Economy in particular, also provide opportunities to consolidate commercial relations between the BRICS and BIMSTEC countries.

 

South Africa has a programme we have termed Operation Phakisa, which is aimed at fast tracking development in the oceans economy including areas such as ship building, aqua-culture and fisheries.

In this regard we would welcome the sharing of information, experience and programmes related to the oceans economy.

 

Another important area which links BRICS and the BIMSTEC countries relates to the environment and climate change challenges in particular.

 

All our member states presently face the threat of either rising sea levels or of extreme climatic conditions such as floods and droughts and other natural disasters.

 

Here we have the opportunity of pooling together our respective best practices in order to address the challenges we face.

 

With regard to climate change, I would like to use this opportunity to congratulate all countries that have successfully ratified the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, as well as those who have indicated their intention to do so.

 

I urge those countries which have not yet made this pledge to accede to this important milestone.  Our internal processes are far advanced and we should ratify soon.

 

The BRICS-BIMSTEC partnership can thrive also through strengthening cooperation in the areas of training, scholarships and research facilities, specifically in the educational, professional and scientific fields.

Each of our countries has niche areas of expertise and enjoy comparative advantages within specific fields.

 

Cross fertilisation, the exchange of ideas, joint projects and skills training can go far in promoting economic development and social progress in the BRICS and BIMSTEC countries.

 

Lastly, I would welcome cooperation between BRICS and BIMSTEC in endeavours to reform the existing global order and the global system of governance.

 

Excellencies,

 

For far too long the established world paradigm has favoured and been biased towards selected members of the international community.

 

This paradigm is outdated, undemocratic and unfair when seen against the background of contemporary realities.

 

Together we can cooperate and enhance work towards the reform of the United Nations organisation and the Bretton Woods Institutions.

 

Prime Minister,

 

I sincerely thank you for bringing the Leaders of the BRICS and BIMSTEC together.

The South African

‘Zuma must stay to protect the ANC’. Cosatu

Cosatu general secretary Bheki Ntshalintshali believes that, should the ANC get rid of Zuma before his term ends, the party would be left 'bleeding'. Uhm... sure.

By Ezra Claymore -

 

July 1, 2016

Image Credits:Getty

198 SHARES

This is the second time this week that Cosatu has come to the defence of president Jacob Zuma; what with the trade union coalition’s president saying that it’s up to Zuma whether he wants ANC members to help him pay for Nkandla…

Now, it would seem, the crumbling Cosatu is willing to go even further and use what little influence it has left within the tripartite alliance to protect Zuma’s position.

Cosatu’s Bheki Ntshalintshali believes that Zuma should serve out his term in order to protect the party — he must not read the news very often — from a fallout similar to what happened when Zuma, with the help of then ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema, ousted Thabo Mbeki and became president.

“From the bleeding it had when it recalled Thabo Mbeki and now again to recall someone who’s left with a few months to retire from the ANC, I think they will allow the natural processes to go through than creating more divisions within the movement,” Ntshalintshali told Bloomberg.

“It’s too risky for them.”

IOL

‘Zuma is here to stay’

NEWS / 3 November 2016, 09:13am

MAYIBONGWE MAQHINA

Durban - President Jacob Zuma is going nowhere, say his supporters in the ANC leagues and some of the party’s provincial structures, including KwaZulu-Natal, who are now rallying for a fight-back.

They were adamant they would resist any attempt to have him recalled from public office, regardless of the findings made in the public protector’s “State of Capture” report, made public on Wednesday.

President Jacob Zuma Picture: Masi Losi. Credit: Independent Media

The Daily News has learnt that while guidance was awaited from the ruling party’s national executive committee on how to deal with the report, Zuma’s supporters will encourage him to take it on review to the high court.

It was also expected that branches would be mobilised against the perceived attacks on Zuma, with the people taken into confidence about the challenges facing the ANC and government.

An all-out campaign would be mounted to discredit former public protector Thuli Madonsela, whose report is viewed by Zuma loyalists as having failed to give the president a fair opportunity to state his case.

In KZN, the ANC’s provincial executive committee will meet at the weekend to mull over how it would deal with the report, which it has insisted was not “gospel truth”.

The Free State ANC, also a centre of Zuma power, plans to hold a retreat to consolidate its approach on how to take up the matter and to engage with people on the ground.

But, the ANC Youth League has came out strongly, pronouncing that the state capture report would not affect Zuma in any way.

“The president is going nowhere. He is staying in office until 2019,” the league’s provincial secretary, Thanduxolo Sabelo, said.

“We will never allow instability. There will be no meeting of the ANC that will take a decision to remove Zuma in the presence of the Youth League,” Sabelo said.

He insisted that a motion of no-confidence in Parliament to unseat Zuma would find no support in the ANC.

“All the ANC members will never vote to remove the president. We will never donate the president to monopoly capital,” he said, of a possible impeachment by opposition parties.

Another option to remove Zuma – through an ANC conference – would fail, he said.

“Any lobby group must subject itself to the processes of the ANC and beyond that there is no other way,” he said, adding that numbers would favour Zuma.

The president enjoys the backing of all the leagues and several provinces as well as many members of the national executive committee, something that should once again ensure his political survival.

ANC Free State spokesman, Thabo Meeko, concurred.

He said they were aware there would be fresh calls to recall Zuma, something he likened to “regime change”.

“It has always been our view that such calls are not new. People are desperate to renew the call, but we know these things were a fabrication of propaganda against the president,” Meeko said.

ANC KZN spokesman, Mdumiseni Ntuli, said while the provincial leadership would meet on Sunday and Monday, anyone within the ANC advocating Zuma’s removal had a partisan agenda, be it covert or overt.

“The report was not rebutted and therefore can’t be a gospel truth,” he said.

“Our view is that the little we read about does not justify that the president must go,” he said.

He said some of the people implicated in the report had not been given an opportunity to make submissions.

“One of her (Madonsela’s)remedial actions is that the judge for the commission not be appointed by the president. There is something wrong in that approach. It is clear that she has concluded that the man is guilty as charged,” Ntuli added.

ANC Youth League national spokesman, Mlondi Mkhize, said Zuma should take the report on judicial review because he was not afforded an opportunity to respond to it.

“The recourse is to take it to the judiciary. That is what the president must do because there could be some form of changes to the report,” Mkhize said.

ANC Women’s League secretary-general Meokgo Matuba agreed. She said any person or institution implicated in the report had a right to take it for judicial review.

“Those rights must be respected by the law-abiding citizens of South Africa,” Matuba said.

Meanwhile, as part of a fight-back strategy, the league would continue to mobilise support for Zuma, Sabelo said.

“We will defend the president. We are a clear majority. The president has unassailable support, they must just forget,” he said.

Meeko said they were waiting for guidance from national leaders, but people would be mobilised and made aware of the role of monopoly capital in the attack on Zuma.

“We must take the report to the people. The effective way is to engage and take the people into confidence on challenges facing the ANC and government,” Meeko said.

In her report, Madonsela gave Zuma 30 days to appoint a judicial commission of inquiry headed by a judge appointed by Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng to look into “observations” she found during her investigation.

She also ordered that her successor, Busisiwe Mkhwebane, refer matters identified as crimes to the National Prosecuting Authority and the Hawks.

Madonsela’s report is the result of an inquiry she launched into whether Zuma had allowed the Guptas and his son to influence the appointment of cabinet ministers and board members of state-owned entities, and whether he turned a blind eye to attempts to influence the awarding of state contracts to Gupta businesses.

News24

Number One is here to stay’

2016-11-06 06:05

Hlengiwe Nhlabathi, City Press

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ANC deputy Secretary General Jessie Duarte at a May Day rally in Bloemfontein. (Jeanette Chabalala,News24)

ANC deputy secretary-general Jessie Duarte insists that President Jacob Zuma will not step down and that the party will not force him to.

She said it was too early for people to pass judgement on Zuma until he was given a chance to respond to the State of Capture report.

Duarte said, while ANC leaders welcomed civil society activism, equally vigorous efforts needed to be exerted regarding the country’s jobs crisis – particularly by the CEOs who attended the Save SA campaign launch on Wednesday.

“It’s not just [a case of getting] rid of [Zuma] and the ANC and then, voila, jobs will be created. It doesn’t work like that, we are open to engaging. What we fail to engage with is people who are marching past us in the streets wearing the colours of the ANC, but under a strange banner.”

Duarte said the party’s national working committee meeting tomorrow would likely discuss “what’s facing us in the streets”.

Duarte said she would have respected the ANC veterans more if they had intervened when Vuwani was burning. “There must be fairness in this whole debate; come get your hands dirty with us.”

But the door was open for them to lend their experience in the branches.

Duarte said the ANC was yet to receive former president Thabo Mbeki’s leaked letter urging Zuma to meet the stalwarts. The issue, she said, would also be discussed at tomorrow’s meeting.

“We can’t sit there and say there is nothing going on, there is a lot going on,” Duarte said.

“Many of these people making the allegations against the president have yet to tell us where there has been a criminal charge against him.”

She said the ANC and not Zuma was the real target. “We are worried about that, and it’s been consistent.”

She said nothing was wrong with those who had spoken out on state capture and the charging of Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan. They were called to Luthuli House to explain themselves this week and their explanations were accepted, Duarte said.

Duarte said calls for National Prosecuting Authority head Shaun Abrahams to resign were “unfair”.

“Attempts to politicise that office is an old one. It is grossly unfair to constantly make senior public officials pay the price for what opposition won’t accept as reality,” she said.

Duarte slammed former public protector Thuli Madonsela, charging that she had made the president “her special project” and that the contents of her report were predetermined. However, she said the ANC was looking at the report “very intensively”.

Duarte agreed with Zuma and ministers Mosebenzi Zwane and Des van Rooyen that the report didn’t follow the basic principles of law and fairness, as “it doesn’t reflect responses of those implicated”.

“This report makes insinuations that are damaging to people’s reputations and the best thing is for the report to be put under very, very severe scrutiny so that people who have been mentioned have the right to respond and have the right to ask questions.”

She also questioned why Madonsela took away Zuma’s prerogative to appoint a judge to lead a judicial commission of inquiry, insisting that chief justice Mogoeng Mogoeng do so instead, and that Treasury ensure the commission was adequately funded.

Duarte said the ANC’s attempts to probe state capture had been scuppered by people not coming forward. She added it was dangerous to focus on a single family.

With the ANC’s elective conference taking place next year and the 2019 elections just over two years away, ANC leaders are worried about the impact of the saga on the party. “We are concerned, of course,” Duarte said.

SA News

World Cup legacy

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Fifa gives Zuma his ref's certificate

30 June 2009

In the unlikely event of an injury to a referee during the 2010 Fifa World Cup, South Africa has a ready replacement – in President Jacob Zuma, who's just been given a special award by Fifa for refereeing on Robben Island during his years as a political prisoner.

Zuma refereed for the Makana Football Association, which ran a soccer league for political prisoners on Robben Island, between 1965 and 1973.

Fifa president Sepp Blatter conferred the special award on Zuma on Sunday, the final day of the 2009 Fifa Confederations Cup.

"It is a historical moment for Fifa to have a former referee of Robben Island in Mr Jacob Zuma," Blatter said. "As such, we have decided that you are an International Referee, and that is why we have prepared a special certificate for you."

"Thank you so much, I appreciate it," Zuma replied. "This brings back memories of my young days, when I could still play and referee!"

For years on Robben Island, political prisoners had to fight for the right to play football, with men secretly playing the game in their cells with balls made of pieces of paper, cardboard and rags tied together with string.

The island's authorities finally gave in, granting inmates the right to play football in 1965. The prisoners then built their own goals, and would swap their drab prison garb to play in the colours of their teams on Saturdays.

The Makana FA was formed in 1966. It was a football association which adhered strictly to Fifa's statutes and laws of the game. On 18 July 2007, Makana FA became the first Fifa honorary member association.

Among the best players on the island were the likes of Kgalema Motlanthe, currently Deputy President of South Africa. Dikgang Moseneke, now a Constitutional Court judge, was on Makana FA's disciplinary committee.

SAinfo reporter and Fifa.com