NUMSA SUPPORTS COMMENTS ATTRIBUTED TO ANC SECRETARY GENERAL AND SACP NATIONAL CHAIRPERSON FOR THE NATIONALIZATION OF THE RESERVE BANK
The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) welcomes the progressive comments attributed to the ANC Secretary General and SACP National Chairperson Cde Gwede Mantashe for the nationalization of the South African Reserve Bank (SARB).
The call by Cde Mantashe for the nationalization of the Reserve Bank is consistent with both the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Congress of South Africans Trade Unions (COSATU) calls for the Reserve Bank to play a key and strategic role in job creation and mitigating the global financial crisis in the midst of jobs bloodbath, massive squalor and poverty infested amongst the broad sections of the working class and the poor. Our support for the nationalization of the Reserve Bank is informed by our 2006 December Central Committee which instructed our structures to vigorously pursue and campaign for the nationalization of the Reserve Bank.
The policies of the Reserve Bank must be aligned to the objectives of the developmental state and agenda as dictated by the ruling ANC alliance, as opposed to the whims and dictates of the market fundamentals. This is in sync with the policies adopted at the watershed 52nd National Congress of the ANC in 2007, the various Alliance summits and incorporated into the ANC led Alliance elections manifesto and now adopted by government led by President Zuma.
Our support for nationalization and socialization of the key leading heights of the economy including the Reserve Banks to be transferred back into the hands of the people as a whole has nothing with to do with BLING and JEALOUSY, but we are guided by the Freedom Charter which says: ‘the national wealth of our country, the heritage of South Africans, shall be restored to the people; The mineral wealth beneath the soil, the Banks and monopoly industry shall be transferred to the ownership of the people as a whole; all other industry and trade shall be controlled to assist the well-being of the people'.
We call on the Alliance Secretariat to have a structured discussion as part of soliciting an informed and shared perspective on practical mechanisms towards nationalization of the Reserve Bank. The growing inequalities and unemployment poses a major social and economic crisis not for new Jacob Zuma led administration, but also for the Reserve Bank. The Reserve Bank has always assumed a posture and sought to be a ‘cartel' to serve the interests of capital, as opposed to peoples needs and demands.
Statement issued by Castro Ngobese, NUMSA national spokesperson, January 25 2010
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