Numsa fires first alliance salvo over Nkandla upgrades


THE National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa), the country’s biggest union by membership, on Tuesday raised the pressure on President Jacob Zuma by calling into question controversial security upgrades to his private Nkandla home in KwaZulu-Natal.

Acting Numsa president Andrew Chirwa said Mr Zuma could be asked to resign in the “interests of the poor”. With a sea of poverty around him, it was not suitable that public money be spent on one person’s private residence.

Calls for Mr Zuma’s impeachment have so far come from opposition parties following revelations of multimillion-rand renovations to his Nkandla home. The call for discussion made by Numsa on Tuesday is the first to emerge publicly from within the ruling alliance.

“Must we not ask that he resign to preserve the legacy of Nelson Mandela? That legacy is about nothing else but serving the people of South Africa,” Mr Chirwa said at the union’s special four-day national congress in Boksburg, which opened on Tuesday.

Numsa’s comments are likely to raise the political temperature within the alliance, as its comments follow the heckling of Mr Zuma at the official memorial service for Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg last Tuesday, where many audience members said the Nkandla saga was the reason for their actions.

The South African Communist Party (SACP) is already on the attack. It has urged Numsa not to allow itself to be “hijacked” and “become pawns in a dangerous leadership battle”, and blamed the union’s general secretary, Irvin Jim, for using the union to advance his personal ambitions.

The SACP, part of the alliance with the African National Congress (ANC) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions, wrote an open letter to Numsa delegates participating in the special national congress.

As the gathering started, Mr Chirwa came to Mr Jim’s defence, saying all union decisions were made by its leadership collective.

“A huge responsibility rests upon your shoulders in the coming days,” said the SACP in its letter. “As workers you know how hard it is to build and sustain union organisation … it is hard to build and yet so easy to destroy unity from within if we become factionalist, manipulative, intolerant of fellow workers, if we allow democratic worker control to be hijacked.”

At the congress, Numsa is to decide whether to break ties with the alliance and withhold support of the ANC ahead of national elections in 2014.

The SACP has blamed Mr Jim’s “frustrated personal ambitions” for taking Numsa along its current trajectory.

It said Mr Jim tried to have suspended Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi installed as ANC deputy president ahead of the party’s Mangaung national conference last year. Mr Jim had hoped he would then take over as general secretary of Cosatu, according to the SACP.

“The failure of this unmandated, behind-the-scenes manoeuvre and Jim’s thwarted personal ambitions are what lie behind his current reckless behaviour and posture,” the party said in the open letter.

The SACP also blamed Mr Jim for the divisions in Cosatu, saying that after failing to install himself as general secretary, he was now determined to split the federation and lead a break-away formation.

“With his ambitions frustrated, with the royal road to the general secretary position in Cosatu not opening up for him, Jim has become even more reckless. He is prepared to risk workers’ jobs in his headlong quest for personal publicity,” it said.

“It is time for Numsa rank-and-file workers to rescue their union from reckless adventurers spurred on by their own personal ambitions.”