In mid-August, an estimated 15,000 workers for the South African power company went on an illegal strike after weeks of wage increase negotiations. Employed by Eskom, South Africa’s largest electricity company, nearly one third of the work force protested the wage ceiling and inadequate housing allowances. Eskom had pre-emptively obtained a court interdict banning employees from striking after negotiations with major unions turned sour. The unions that represent Eskom employees had demanded their wages be increased by 12-13%, but Eskom refused to budge above 7-9%, and claimed wage discrimination as a hangover from apartheid. Workers felt that their grievances warranted more than negotiations, and thus went on strike.

Unpopular Policies

Eskom was established in 1923 and generates approximately 95% of the country’s electricity. Over the past seventy-odd years, Eskom has been the center of a variety of dramatic incidents, but perhaps the most pertinent is their policy of “load shedding.” Beginning in response to inadequate power supplies starting in 2007, Eskom began the practice of load shedding, or regular, scheduled blackouts to reduce the stress upon the electricity grid, turbines and power sources. In order to meet the demand of South Africans with an inadequate supply, different regions are purposely deprived of electricity so that it can be directed elsewhere on a complex schedule. The vast majority of South Africa’s energy comes from aging coal-fired power stations. In what can only be a planned irony, the strike came on the one-year anniversary of “no shedding,” or an entire year without planned power cuts. Eskom had been looking forward to publicizing their success but were instead faced with the possibility of a black-out due to a shortage of workers.

Workers Unite

As South Africa’s largest producer of energy, Eskom is considered a vital service company. In South Africa, workers in vital service industries can be prevented from striking despite their constitutional right to do so. After weeks of negotiations with workers and their unions (primarily the NUM and Numsa, or National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa), Eskom realized workers were likely to strike regardless of the preventative law. They then applied for and were granted an interdict, opening up any workers who did strike for legal action by the company. Eskom’s national spokesman, Khulu Phasiwe, said that workers who did not show up to work because they were striking would have to account managers the reasons for to their absence without leave. 15,000 workers, or about one third of Eskom’s total employee base, considered the strike worth the risk. Workers demonstrated outside power stations in the eastern provinces, while others went on strike across the country.

Eskom workers demanded that their wages be increased incrementally, starting with a “10% increase of the lowest salaries, 8.5% of the highest income and housing allowance of 3,000 rand,” approximately $222 USD. Prior to the strike, the company refused to budge above a 9% increase. According to the country’s largest union, National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), the lowest paid Eskom worker earns about 9,000 rand, or $666 per month. While cost of living in South Africa is lower than in, say, the United States, $666 is not enough to live on, particularly if one is supporting a family.

NUM released a bold statement saying that “the NUM members are very angry at the attitude of Eskom refuses to end the wage system of apartheid.” In various interviews, several workers claimed racial discrimination, and some women claimed gender bias as well. Under apartheid, white South Africans were paid a higher wage for the same job than black South Africans. This legalised and codified racism ended in name with the collapse of apartheid in 1994, but continues in practice to this day in every sector of South African life. All of NUM’s members at Eskom went on strike. It is not just the racially-based wage discrimination that drove workers to strike, but also the unlivable wages they receive for their labor.

The Enemy of My Enemy…

Prior to the strikes, the NUM and Numsa had been bitterly divided over their ideologies and desires. This strike, however, has brought them together: a spokesperson from NUM said “whatever differences we may have with Numsa, we have a common enemy now, which is Eskom.” Eskom ensured the public that negotiations are underway to bring an end to the civil action, but it seems unlikely the issue will be put to rest any time soon.

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By Eric Knecht and Maha El Dahan

CAIRO/ABU DHABI (Reuters) – A parliamentary fact-finding commission’s report into corruption in Egypt’s wheat industry finds that the government played a key role in “wasting public funds” in its costly food subsidy programme.

Reuters reviewed a copy of the report that will be presented in parliament on Monday. It states that government entities neglected their own storage facilities in favour of less regulated private sites, made contracts with “fake entities,” and oversaw flawed reforms that caused subsidy spending to increase rather than decrease as publicly stated.

From silo contracts to budgetary analysis to testimony from industry officials, the more than 500-page fact-finding report into wheat corruption points to government involvement in mismanaging, and at times facilitating graft in, subsidies intended to encourage agriculture and feed tens of millions.

“There are obvious flaws that rise to the level of complicity in the supply ministry and all of its bodies supervising the wheat procurement system,” the report said.

The supply ministry spokesman said he had resigned from his post and could no longer comment on the issue when contacted by Reuters.

Egypt, the world’s largest importer of wheat, has been mired in controversy in recent months over whether much of the roughly 5 million tonnes of grain the government said it procured in this harvest exists only on paper, the result of local suppliers falsifying receipts to boost government payments.

Industry officials have estimated that upward of 2 million tonnes could be missing from silos, a deficit that could force Egypt to import large quantities of additional grains to meet local demand even as it faces an acute hard currency shortage.

A Reuters special report earlier this year detailed how the government’s wheat supply chain was riddled with corruption – from fraudulent wheat purchases by local suppliers to hacked smart cards that allowed bakers to steal flour – that has cost the country hundreds of millions of dollars per year.

LAX OVERSIGHT

The parliamentary report provides new insight into how government bodies may have played a direct role in many of the corrupt practices, particularly by awarding contracts to private suppliers who had lax oversight of their storage facilities, while leaving government sites unused.

The supply ministry’s Holding Company for Silos housed over 1 million tonnes of wheat in less-regulated private sector storage this season while leaving 700,000 tonnes of its own storage capacity unutilised – a violation of regulations that require government spaces to take priority, the report found.

The holding company used just 29.7 percent of the silo capacity it had available, it said.

“Despite that (unused storage), the company contracted with private sector companies to rent 16 silos and 35 shounas (open air sites) to store a total of 1,147,319 tonnes of wheat.”

“Not using the full storage capacity owned by the (government) company caused it to bear huge losses…and made it take on the cost of paying to rent from the private sector.”

The report also called into question the legality of many of the contracts made with the private sector sites.

Government firms contracted with “storage sites that had legal actions taken against them previously but which had since changed their commercial names”, and with those that “did not have a commercial registration or a tax identification.”

“This means that contracting was done with fake entities,” the report stated.

Last week Supplies Minister Khaled Hanafi resigned amid growing criticism of his management of the subsidies. His exit was the biggest fallout from the wheat scandal to date.

Hanafi repeatedly said that bread system reforms introduced under his watch in 2014 have saved Egypt in terms of both money and strategic commodities, an assertion the report undermines.

He was not immediately available for comment about the parliamentary report when contacted by Reuters.

Government spending on bread subsidies rose by 3.91 billion Egyptian pounds ($440.32 million), or 15.9 percent, in the 2014-15 financial year, and by an additional 1.89 billion ($212.84 million), or 6.6 percent, in 2015-16, the report states, citing Finance Ministry documents.

“Subsidies increased, and did not decrease as a result of the bread system as the supply ministry continuously claims.”

($1 = 8.8799 Egyptian pounds)

(Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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By Mfuneko Toyana

PRETORIA (Reuters) – South African President Jacob Zuma said on Thursday he backs Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan but cannot intervene in a police investigation over a suspected spy unit at the tax service, signalling a prolonged tussle that could rock markets further.

Gordhan said on Wednesday he had done nothing wrong and had no legal obligation to obey a police summons linked to an investigation into whether he used the South African Revenue Service to spy on politicians including Zuma.

The rand, which had tumbled 5 percent since Tuesday in response to the investigation, picked up on Thursday and gained further ground after Zuma’s statement, while government bonds also firmed, even though analysts said the president had offered only qualified support.

News of Gordhan’s summons this week compounded investors’ worries about a power struggle between Zuma and Gordhan as Africa’s most industrialised economy teeters near recession and credit rating agencies consider downgrading it to “junk”.

The main opposition party called on Thursday for a parliamentary debate into what it called a “witch-hunt” against Gordhan, who was in charge of the tax service when the unit under investigation was set up.

Investors and rating agencies back Gordhan’s plans to rein in government spending in an economy that has been forecast by the central bank to register no growth this year.

In his first public comments on the matter since it surfaced late on Tuesday, Zuma said he had noted the concerns by individuals and various organisations over the investigation.

“President Jacob Zuma wishes to express his full support and confidence in the Minister of Finance and emphasises the fact that the minister has not been found guilty of any wrong doing,” the presidency said in a statement.

“The Presidency wishes to also emphasise that President Zuma does not have powers to stop any investigations into any individual/s,” it said, adding that Zuma could not bring a halt to the probe even if it was negatively affecting the economy.

TENSIONS WITH TREASURY

A Zuma-backed plan to build a series of nuclear power plants, at a cost of as much as $60 billion, has caused tension with the Treasury for months and is likely adding to pressure on Gordhan’s position, analysts say. The presidency said in May that Zuma was not warring with Gordhan.

On Thursday, the presidency defended plans by cabinet to give Zuma supervision over state-owned firms after Gordhan’s allies said this would limit the finance minister’s control.

Zuma’s team and the Treasury under Gordhan have disagreed about government spending, including at loss-making state companies like South African Airways, analysts say. [nL8N1B6328]

Analysts also questioned the extent of Zuma’s stated support for his finance minister.

“It was an ambiguous vote of confidence in Pravin Gordhan which would suggest that the agencies supposedly investigating in Pravin Gordhan will be given relatively free rein to continue these investigations,” said Daniel Silke, a director at Political Futures Consultancy.

NKC African Economics analyst Gary van Staden concurred.

“Anybody who watches English football can tell you when the owner says he has confidence in the manager, the manager is out of there in a week,” he said.

Political activists protested outside the offices of the Hawks, the elite police unit that is investigating Gordhan, in solidarity with the minister, where two former officials of the tax service presented themselves to the police.

Hawks spokesman Hangwani Mulaudzi declined to comment.

A former finance minister, Trevor Manuel, said on Wednesday the economy would be “destroyed” if Zuma fired Gordhan, after he changed finance ministers twice in one week in December.

(Additional reporting by Joe Brock, James Macharia and Tanisha Heiberg; Writing by James Macharia; editing by Dominic Evans)

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