By Norm Dixon
JOHANNESBURG — The African National Congress' ambitious Reconstruction and Development Program (RDP) — the cornerstone of its election campaign — would be funded in part by major cuts in military spending and the nuclear program as well as savings from the elimination of apartheid institutions. ANC head of economic planning Trevor Manuel and former COSATU general secretary Jay Naidoo, launching the seventh and final draft of the RDP here on April 12, said that funds would be redirected to South Africa's poor.
The RDP sets specific goals the ANC is pledged to achieve over the next five years. The RDP, says the ANC, must be a "people-driven process" whose key priorities are to "meet basic needs, develop human resources, build the economy" and "democratise the state and society". The main goals for this period include:
- To build a minimum of 1 million houses. All housing must provide protection from the weather and reasonable living space and privacy. Houses must include sanitary facilities, storm-water drainage, a household energy supply and convenient access to clean water.
- To provide running water and flush toilets to more than 1 million families in the first five years. The first target will be clean water within 200 metres of every home.
- To electrify 2.5 million rural and urban homes.
- Free health care for under fives. Immunisation to cover 95% of the population within five years. Health spending to emphasise preventive primary health care, with special attention to the early detection and treatment of diseases like TB and cervical cancer. Within three years every person must get their basic nutritional requirement each day.
- An adequate pension for those over 60.
- A public works program that will create 2.5 million real jobs that will give participants genuine skills.
- Ten years of free and compulsory education for all South Africans.
- Universal affordable access to telephones as rapidly as possible. Telecommunications services to be provided to all schools and clinics within two years.
- The development of an effective publicly owned, safe, affordable public transport system that integrates road, rail and air transport. Commuters to be encouraged to use public transport and discouraged from the use of private cars. As a first priority, the passenger rail system will extended. The provision of primary road infrastructure will be directed towards the needs of public transport.
Jay Naidoo said that the ANC was convinced that South Africa has the resources available to meet the goals set out in the RDP.
"The figures in the RDP document are not sucked out of our thumbs. They are the consequence of very detailed and systematic research within our own ranks, from negotiations and discussions in important forums throughout the country, and consultations with other stakeholders [in the economy]. There is now agreement in the country that there should be a national effort to address the basic needs of our people, at the same time promoting sound economic growth that is going to locate us internationally in a competitive way."
Trevor Manuel said the implementation of the RDP over the next five years would cost about R39 billion, excluding electrification. The electricity authority, Eskom, would finance electrification.
He dismissed claims that the ANC was promising too much in the RDP. The RDP would be funded by establishing a new set of priorities in the budget. "In the current budget, defence gets some 10.7 billion rand against R1.6 billion for housing. The defence secret account alone, at R3.8 billion, is 2.5 times larger that the housing budget. That is a contradiction that we cannot sustain ...
"Are we going to be a nation that uses its armaments capacity to manufacture and export weapons? I think every South African should hang their head in shame, because South Africa has been the main supplier of arms to Rwanda. That goes against the grain of the ANC and our political will."
The R460 million annually devoted to South Africa's nuclear program will also be cut, said Naidoo. The substantial scientific and technological capacity within the military should be converted to civilian needs linked to a broader social and economic strategy.
Manuel said that last year de Klerk claimed the program to acquire nuclear weapons had cost South Africa R800 million. "However, there are very strong suggestions from quarters very close to those involved in the nuclear program that it cost a whopping R8 billion."
Elimination of apartheid structures will save considerable funds, Manuel said. "There are 14 education departments. Each director general earns R280,000 a year plus car and house. We need a single education department. There is a lot of room for achieving efficiency. We need a set of identifiable targets like pupil/teacher, pupil/classroom, pupil/textbook ratios as determinants of the efficiency of education delivery."
Naidoo illustrated the inefficiency of apartheid in education: "R23 billion is spent on education today. Yet we have less people who can read or write than Tanzania, where the total budget for the whole country is smaller than that."
Manuel said there is still about R4 billion in the budget that maintains apartheid infrastructure. "The embassy of Bophuthatswana in one of the popular avenues of Paris is valued at more than the South Africa embassy in Paris. Bophuthatswana still maintains a large foreign service even though as an entity it no longer exists." He also pointed out that, compared to the rest of the world, South Africa spends the smallest proportion of its GDP on revenue collection, resulting in much company tax not being collected.
The election of governments seen by the vast majority of South Africans as legitimate would also result in ending of the widespread payments boycotts in the townships. Manuel added, "There is the capacity to borrow from international financial institutions. On international borrowing, we are extremely cautious."
The ANC may not need to increase taxes or government spending as a percentage of GDP. The government deficit of 6.25% of GDP for 1994-95 was unlikely to increase. "We are not going to incur expenses willy-nilly and then print money", Naidoo assured the large number of foreign financial journalists present.
Answering a question on nationalisation, Manuel said the ANC "does not have a 'program' for nationalisation ... We have said that the state can either enlarge or reduce its share of the economy. If it is to enlarge, certainly nationalisation may be one of the options chosen."