South Africa

CAPE TOWN – South Africa’s multibillion-rand public infrastructure programme, including those projects that will unlock key mineral resources and exports, were given strong emphasis by President Jacob Zuma in his State of the Nation address, delivered in Parliament on Thursday evening. Effectively declaring 2012 the year of infrastructure delivery, Zuma used the occasion to unveil a list of five major geographically focused programmes, as well as a host of infrastructure initiatives designed to support health and education, the upscaling of information and communication technologies, as well as to accelerate regional integration. He also committed to convening a ‘Presidential infrastructure summit’ to discuss the implementation of the plan with potential investors and social partners. The plan itself would be overseen by the Presidential Infrastructure Coordinating Commission (PICC), which was established in September under the leadership of Zuma and his deputy, Kgalema Motlanthe, and which also included Ministers, premiers and the metropolitan mayors. “We will use the project management expertise gained during the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup to make this project a success,” Zuma says, highlighting the role those infrastructure projects played in helping South Africa weather the effects of the ‘Great Recession’ of 2008 and 2009. The projects prioritised by the PICC included those that would be implemented by State-owned companies (SoCs), such as Eskom and Transnet, as well as national, provincial and local government departments. “These have been clustered, sequenced and prioritised into a pipeline of strategic integrated projects,” the President says. Many of the priority projects were designed to improve the performance of South Africa’s mining industry, which stood out among its global peer group as having failed to capitalise on the precrisis commodities boom.

CAPE TOWN – President Jacob Zuma squashed more than two years of talk about the nationalisation of South Africa's massive mining sector, saying State control or ownership of the mines in the world's biggest platinum producer could not work. Asked, during a televised breakfast briefing, if the government planned to nationalise mines, Zuma says emphatically: "We're very clear. It is not our policy. We've been saying this inside the country, outside the country. It cannot be. We have answered this question many times. We are very clear," he adds. "Our policy is mixed economy." Coming at the end of a week in which two senior Ministers dismissed nationalisation as unviable and the ruling African National Congress (ANC) released a study describing it as an "unmitigated disaster", Zuma's comments lay to rest two years of debate that hit South Africa's image as an investor-friendly emerging market. Radical elements within the ANC are still likely to float an idea first raised by Youth League leader Julius Malema, especially as the party approaches major conferences in June and December. However, Malema's suspension from the party at the end of last year for disciplinary offences and the growing ranks of declared and heavyweight opponents of nationalisation mean the idea is not going anywhere.

JOHANNESBURG – Most South Africans living in urban areas believe their tap water is safe to drink, a study commissioned by the Water Research Commission (WRC) and the South African Local Government Association has found. The study, which investigated urban South Africans’ perceptions of their water quality and the factors that influence perceptions, drew a random sample of 2 437 urban households. The study found that 81% of urban South Africans from all income levels perceived their tap water to be safe to drink. “This correlated with international studies, which found that most people in countries with a reliable water supply perceive tap water as having a low safety risk,” the WRC states. The study also found that women are significantly less confident about the safety of tap water than men. “Women are also more likely than men to boil or filter drinking water. Women are more inclined than men to drink only bottled water.” Younger people aged between 16 years and 34 years are more positive about the safety of drinking water than people over 35 years of age.

CAPE TOWN – South Africa will not surprise mining companies with sudden new taxes, although it may adjust existing tax codes, a leading government Minister says. “If there is to be change, I’m pretty sure that the Finance Minister and the Department of Mineral Resources will take a long-term view and not impose this one fine morning,” National Planning Minister Trevor Manuel says at a mining conference in Cape Town. “I don’t think that surprises are good for an industry like this, and this is likely to be the trend taken by government in introducing change,” he says. South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) has commissioned a study on the nationalisation of mines, which has yet to be completed. Local media reports say the study will reject nationalisation and come out in favour of higher taxes and royalties. Manuel says it is critical that sensible taxation exists to extract rent from the industry and invest in South Africa’s development. The Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act has a royalties component that already adds to the country’s tax regime. “That it can be improved on is in little doubt. Whether the levels are correct or not is also open to debate, but the basic elements are there and [are a] sufficient a platform to build on,” he says.

Africa & the world

CAIRO – Egypt's religious authorities call on unions and youth groups to scrap plans for a wave of strikes aimed at forcing the ruling generals from power, saying the people must show duty to the nation and spare its tattered economy fresh damage. The first strike planned from Saturday – the anniversary of Hosni Mubarak's overthrow – will close universities and factories, cancel trains and slash public services. Analysts say Egypt is in desperate need of foreign support to avert a financial crisis caused by a year of economic and political turmoil. Investment and tourism have shriveled, unemployment has grown and foreign reserves are at danger level. "I appeal to you . . . not to disrupt work even for one hour and commit yourselves to meet your duties toward yourselves, your families and your country," Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayib, Grand Imam of Egypt's highest Islamic authority al-Azhar, says in a message to the nation of 80-million people. In a statement carried in newspapers, Coptic Orthodox Pope Shenouda III says: "Civil disobedience is not accepted by religion and the State does not accept it and there are many verses in the Holy Book that talk of following the ruler." An estimated 10% of Egypt's population is Christian. The scale of response to the strike call will offer clues to the appetite of Egyptians for more confrontation with the army, which oversaw the first free election in six decades and is pledging to hand full power to elected civilians by mid-year.

MOGADISHU – Al-Qaeda's leader Ayman al-Zawahri says Somalia's militant group al-Shabaab has joined the global network, in a video posted on Islamist forums. "Today, I have glad tidings for the Muslim ummah (nation) that will please the believers and disturb the disbelievers, which is the joining of the Shabaab al-Mujahideen Movement in Somalia to Qaedat al-Jihad to support the jihadi unity against the Zionist-Crusader campaign and their assistants amongst the treacherous agent rulers," says a bespectacled Zawahri in the video. The clip included an audio recording by al-Shabaab's leader Sheikh Abu Zubeyr, in which he pledges allegiance to Zawahiri, who took over the reins of al-Qaeda last year, following the killing of Osama bin Laden in a US attack in Pakistan. Al-Shabaab, which controls large areas of Somalia, voiced support for Zawahri soon after he took over al-Qaeda. The ties between al-Qaeda and al-Shabaab have, in the past, been mainly ideological. While counter-terrorism experts say al-Shabaab has received advice and training from some members of the transnational network, it has tended to see itself more as an ally of al-Qaeda than a direct outpost of the core organisation. Security analysts say the move could be a public relations gambit by an al-Qaeda leadership severely weakened by drone strikes in its Pakistan mountain bastions and its failure to carry out a major successful attack in the West since 2005.

CAIRO – An Egypt run by Amr Moussa will be a civilian State with an army that enjoys respect but not “a life of its own”. This is a vision that could challenge the privileges of generals who have been ruling since Hosni Mubarak was toppled from power. In an interview with Reuters, Moussa says he will fight corruption to strengthen the economy, preserve strong ties with the US, respect a peace treaty with Israel and cooperate with the Islamists, who now dominate Parliament. A former Arab League secretary-general, Moussa is one of the leading contenders in the Presidential election expected in the next few months under a timetable laid out by the ruling military council, which assumed power from Mubarak last year. The generals have faced criticism at home and abroad over their management of the post-Mubarak transition and their commitment to democratic reform has been brought into question by actions reminiscent of the ousted leader’s rule.

DEMASCUS – Syrian and Libyan demonstrators hurled rocks, eggs and tomatoes at the Chinese embassy in Tripoli, after Russia and China vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution backing an Arab plan urging Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad to give up power. Armed men, who say they were from the Libyan government’s Supreme Security Committee, guarded the embassy from about 50 protesters who waved Syrian opposition flags and had managed to break windows and spray graffiti on the walls. One demonstrator tried to force his way past the guards but was stopped, a Reuters reporter says. Just as protesters had done the day before at the Russian embassy, demonstrators say that they want to take down the Chinese flag and replace it with the Syrian opposition’s flag and the red, black and green flag of Libya’s National Transitional Council, which came to power after a civil war last year that toppled and killed Muammar Gaddafi.