The fact that newly elected Nelson Mandela Bay Mayor Zanoxolo Wayile declared last week that the use of labour brokers had been banned by the municipality illustrates that the ANC government is once again going out of its way to appease narrow interest groups at the expense of the majority of South Africans. Indeed, we now have a situation where the lobbying of Cosatu and its affiliates is being heeded and acted upon by members of the executive -- even before legislatures have been able to properly examine the matter of labour broking.

Mayor Wayile is not alone in this regard. Other ANC executive officials have recently announced moratoriums on the practice of labour broking include:-

· The Minister of Police, who has placed the resourcing of the police in jeopardy, by announcing that the thousands of temporary employed workers in the police will lose their jobs; and
· The Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs, who "has phased out this practice".

The fact is that Parliament has passed no law banning labour broking. If it did, it would throw another half a million people out of work. What we are again seeing, though, is that members of the executive are taking their marching orders from Luthuli House and the unions, rather than appropriate legislative bodies. In addition to this, where Parliament has been involved, the process has been a farce. We have not seen anything that could remotely be called public participation.

The labour broker issue entails calculated efforts by the ANC to override the basic principles of democracy by intruding on the public's right to make an input into the governance of South Africa. The blatant disruption of parliamentary hearings into labour broking has now been followed by ANC members of the executive placing ad hoc moratoriums on labour broking - a practice that ought to cease immediately.