African press review 18 February 2014

Mine bosses sue a union. SA doomsayers have got it wrong. Kenyan state governors do a lot of travelling. A French political scientist testifies at the ICC. Kenya's president gets to the top of the salary pecking order.

According to the Johannesburg-based financial paper, BusinessDay, South Africa's Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration does not expect Anglo American Platinum’s multimillion-rand lawsuit against the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union to affect talks aimed at ending the ongoing strike in the platinum sector.

The strike is now into its fourth week. The union is demanding a doubling of entry level wages for underground workers.

Amplats is suing the union for damages of more than 60 million euros.

BusinessDay's opinion and analysis pages carry an article by Jakkie Cilliers of the the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria.

Cilliers says that the country will go to the polls on 7 May in an environment of political turbulence and economic uncertainty.

South Africa appears to be in crisis. But while the country faces leadership challenges and urgently needs changes to key social, economic and political systems, the perennial sense of doom is not supported by deeper analysis. South Africa’s structural growth prospects are actually quite healthy. Prosperity is within the country's grasp, according to Cilliers.

The crucial element will be the quality of leadership provided by the ruling African National Congress.

In Kenya the Standard reports that state governors spent more than one billion shillings (eight million euros) on travel in a single three-month period.

The total spend is way above the Sh872 million that governors allocated to development projects.

During the same period members of the county assemblies earned more than Sh473 million in sitting allowances in addition to their hefty salaries.

The revelations are contained in the latest report from the Controller of the Budget.

Also in the Standard, an expert witness yesterday told the International Criminal Court that President Uhuru Kenyatta was once a member of the Orange Democratic Movement's top leadership organ, known as the Pentagon.

French political scientist Hervé Maupeu said Uhuru was a member of the Pentagon representing the Central Province soon after the 2005 Constitution referendum.

Maupeu was giving evidence on Kenya’s social, cultural and political history during the trial of Deputy President William Ruto and journalist Joshua arap Sang. The two are accused of complicity in the violence which followed the 2007 presidential election.

The trial resumed yesterday after the Christmas break.

The Daily Nation reports that a new public salary structure in Kenya makes the president the highest-paid government official in the country, while resident magistrates and members of county assemblies have been ranked as the lowest-paid state officers.

The Salaries and Remuneration Commission has created 112 state offices, up from the current 50.

The commission has set the president’s salary at a maximum of Sh1.6 million. At one point, the head of the anti-corruption authority was the highest paid public servant in Kenya with a salary of Sh2.5 million, higher than that of the president.

Salaries and Remuneration Commission chairwoman Sarah Serem said the current wage legislation does not allow for any public or state officer to get a salary increment unless the public is willing to pay more taxes.