A pedestrian walks past street art in Braamfontein, on the side of the building that houses the Stevenson Gallery, 20 January 2016. The art reads "#asinamali", "demilitarise our campus!!", "#feesmustfall", "enough is enough" and "education is not a privilege". Picture: Michel Bega
We agree with former union leader Jay Naidoo, now chair of the board of directors and chair of the partnership council of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, headquartered in Geneva and launched at the 2002 UN summit on children, that fast-tracking this country into a bigger reliance on nuclear energy should not be a South African priority.
“The nuclear deal has nothing to do with our energy needs,” Naidoo told the delegates in the build-up to the institution of South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) in Boksburg yesterday.
“It will create no jobs or technology innovation. The skills for that programme will come from Russia, China or France, who will have a stranglehold on our economy.
“At the same time, there’s a reasonable demand for free, decolonised and quality education, and we are prepared to throw a trillion rand at a nuclear deal that we do not need and sacrifice our children’s education.”
With the memories of the violence which peaked in last year’s #FeesMustFall protests still fresh, Naidoo presents a reasoned argument for what this country needs and can afford. The nuclear route is sure to divert increasingly scarce public funding away from what should be prime concerns for all of us.
We cannot allow the money to run out.