Cosatu+slams+Mbeki+over+racism,+News24

News24, Johannesburg, 10/12/2006 14:36 - (SA)
=Cosatu slams Mbeki over racism=

Johannesburg - The Congress of South African Trade Unions says it is angered by President Thabo Mbeki's use of the race card against the labour federation.

Cosatu said in a statement on Sunday that Mbeki had written about it and the SACP in his weekly newsletter on ANC Today.

"We find it particularly offensive that President Mbeki has seen fit to play the race card in a manner that suggests that the people with business interests - whom he is defending - are somehow blacker than the working class components of the alliance," Cosatu said.

"Moreover the president's style of engagement leaves much to be desired.

"He never debates on the strength of his arguments or correctness of the points he is raising.

"He always seeks to misrepresent people's genuine concerns in order to ridicule those he disagrees with and question their integrity.

"He throws the race card even against organisations whose membership is constituted mainly by the very ANC members he is leading.

"In the process of doing so he has antagonised countless organisations and left the ANC and the Alliance fractious and deeply divided."

Cosatu would not withdraw even one word of what it had said in the matter of Gautrain and the involvement of some ministers.

"We reiterate that it is wrong for political leaders who have been tasked to lead transformation to get involved in business deals that compromise their roles as government administrators.

"We believe it is immoral for anyone to seek to be both a people's representative and be a businessman or women at the same time."

Cosatu was extremely concerned that a growing number of ANC and government leaders had all manner of business interests, directly or through their spouses.

"In his letter the president does not deny that government ministers and other prominent leaders are shareholders in companies that are profiting from government contracts, and specifically from the Gautrain Bombela contract," Cosatu said.

"On the contrary, the President seeks to justify this situation and to portray it as normal and even admirable."


 * From: http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/Politics/0,9294,2-7-12_2042880,00.html**

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