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Pretoria – The tripartite alliance will defend Cosatu’s unity, but the trade union federation needs to sort out its own problems, ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe said on Wednesday.
“The summit also affirms its support of the right of Cosatu to make its own decisions concerning internal discipline,” he said at the conclusion of a five-day summit of the ANC, Cosatu, the SACP, and Sanco.
Members of the Cosatu have been split over supporting its former general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi and expelled trade union Numsa, and its current leadership under Sidumo Dlamini.
Mantashe said the alliance supported Cosatu’s back-to-basics strategy of providing a service to its members.
The summit welcomed the release of the Farlam Commission of Inquiry’s report into the violence in Marikana.
“Mining houses, not least Lonmin, must adhere to the obligations and commitments undertaken in the mining charter in regard to social-labour plans, amongst other things.”
It called for a review of the migrant labour system, and for public order police to be better prepared.
On President Jacob Zuma’s Nkandla homestead, the alliance said the government and courts needed to conclude all civil, criminal and disciplinary matters involving those responsible for the inflation of the project’s cost and scope.
“Contrary to disinformation propagated in much of the commercial media, the report of the public protector found explicitly that no undue influence was brought to bear by the president, nor was there any indication of corruption on his part,” Mantashe said, reading from a prepared statement.
Mantashe said the summit had found no need to talk about the departure of Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir from South Africa, in violation of a court order.
He said it was a question of whether South Africa should subsume its relationship with the continent to “other, superior, multilateral Western institutions”.
“Africa is not inferior, not a junior to European-based institutions. We can’t juniorise Africa,” he said.
