Mampara for July 2014: Minister of Agriculture Senzeni Zokwana

Despite heading up NUM and the SACP, this Mampara only paid his own workers one third of the minimum rate for working seven days a week

In case I am castigated for misstating the formal job title of this Month’s Mampara, Senzeni Zokwana is the recently appointed Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. This Mampara is currently the National Chairperson of the South African Communist Party and was formerly the President of NUM – The National Union of Mineworkers.

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The Platinum Industry Strike: Who Blinked First?

A Personal View – April 2014

South Africa has not experienced a strike of this intensity & magnitude since Cyril Ramaphosa led NUM [The National Union of Mineworkers] to strike on the mines in the mid-eighties.

However this strike will be a seminal event for many reasons.   This comes hard on the heels of the Marikana Massacre in 2013. If for no other reason, this factor will make the mine workers less amenable to a mediocre wages increase. But more importantly, given Joseph Mathunjwa’s loathing of NUM, his former Union, he would like to settle scores with them after his less than amicable departure from his former Union. He is determined to prove a point against NUM as well as the mine bosses.

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