Statement of the African National Congress Youth League on the outcomes of the National Policy Workshop held 1st to 3rd June 2012

The African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) held its Policy Workshop, in preparation for the African National Congress (ANC) Policy Conference, from the 1 -3 June 2012 at the St Georges Hotel in Pretoria. The Policy workshop was attended by structures of the ANCYL including the NEC, PEC and RECs. Alliance Partners addressed the workshop and participated in the vibrant political engagements.

The Policy Workshop sought to consolidate the Youth League's perspective towards the Policy Conference of the African National Congress and below are the major areas that flowed from the discussions that will contribute to the policy submissions of the ANCYL.

Given that it is youth month, the policy workshop engaged and looked into the militant role that was played by young people in the execution of the struggle. We were inspired by the generations of Solomon Mahlangu, Nelson Mandela, Patrick Mbulawa and many other young people who defied death in pursuit of our struggle for national liberation. The policy workshop concluded that young people of South Africa must therefore also never surrender in their fight for economic freedom.

The ANCYL moves to the Policy conference of the ANC with the understanding that the ANC is a radical force of the left, committed to the struggle for the emancipation of our black people in general and African people in particular. Its strategic allies are the national liberation movements on the African continent, socialist internationalist organisations.

It is our understanding that Economic Freedom in our Lifetime will and must characterize this period of radical transformation. The National Democratic Revolution, particularly the resolution of the national and class questions, continues to drive our outlook.

Now is the time for the ANC to return to these fundamental questions and move away from the permanent detours that were taken during the CODESA negotiations. Accordingly, the ANCYL maintains that 1994 was a political breakthrough and its attainment has not yet delivered the freedom that we envisaged; freedom whose content should have been both political and economic. 

The ANCYL National Policy Workshop further observed that the current policy discussions of the ANC are instructed by the diagnostic report of the National Planning Commission and this negates the spirit and letter of the Polokwane Resolutions. Polokwane was about reasserting the centrality of the organisation and a clear statement that the ANC must provide the ideological outlook and directives to government and not vice versa.

Our Policy Workshop was further taking place within a global environment where developed and developing countries the world over, including advanced capitalist countries, are playing a direct role in strategic sectors of their economies. Amongst these we noted the development in Malaysia, China, India, Germany and even Britain which has recently nationalized the Scottish Bank of England. 

Our position therefore is that the time has now come for a meaningful and radical economic transformation policy. All discussions on the transformation of the economy and the state should have as their fundamental basis the attainment of the Freedom Charter objectives. 

We reaffirm our resolutions of the 24th National Congress as part of our submissions and the generational programme of action to Economic Freedom in Our Life with its  clarion call of the seven (7) cardinal pillars for economic transformation.

The radical economic transformation policy the ANC should drive must, unapologetically, be about redistributing the land and mineral wealth of South Africa to the people as a whole.

It should be premised by amending section 25 of the Constitution of SA as it is a stumbling block towards real redistribution of wealth. The willing buyer willing seller principle has failed and we cannot continue to give effect to a policy that has not delivered on the aspirations of our people 18 years into democracy. The ANC must unequivocally proclaim the need to expropriate land without compensation. All land must be owned by the state and leased to private individuals.

The mineral wealth beneath the soil must be returned to people as a whole. South Africa can never attain its objective of being a developmental and interventionist state, where there is no state ownership and control of the strategic levers of the economy, being the banks, monopoly industry and the mines.

We remain resolute on the need for a state bank. Such a State Bank will not only ensure that the interests of the majority are considered as a priority but shall also be a progressive institution to drive government's infrastructural projects. To date, the ANC continues to expect financial institutions that are driven by a profit motive and capitalistic greed to implement, on our behalf, developmental socio-economic transformation. 

Government institutions and portfolios must be aligned to the aspirations of the Freedom Charter to ensure that the mandate is clear and unambiguous. Each of the clauses of the Freedom Charter must be clearly located within the state apparatus and have a political figure head at the helm accountable for its delivery. There should therefore be a Ministry on each of the clauses with specific deliverables to be attained including a Ministry of Free Basic Education to deliver free basic education by end of 2013, and Ministry of Nationalisation.

Our international relations perspective is driven by the understanding that the ANC is anti-imperialistic and internationalist in character. We will continue to give solidarity to the organisations and peoples of Cuba, Western Sahara, Palestine and Burma. We call for the lifting of the illegal sanctions against Zimbabwe and call for the speedy conclusion of the Global Political Agreement.

On Youth Development     

We reaffirm the 24th National Congress Resolutions on Youth Development and call for government to resource the National Youth Development Agency appropriately. We call for the implementation of compulsory National Youth Service across all government departments and the dissolution of all SETAs. One institution must be established to consolidate all of government's skills development initiatives.

We further reject the notion of a Youth Wage Subsidy as this will create an unsustainable and undesirable two tier labour market whose sole beneficiaries shall be business. Various options need to be considered including a Job Search Subsidy as implemented in Brazil. Such subsidy, instead of relegating young people, to lowly paid, unsecured workers at the whim of capital, shall support young people, discouraged and otherwise, in their quest to find employment.

ANCYL YOUTH MONTH PROGRAMME 

As part of the commemoration of the 36th Anniversary of the June 16 uprising, the ANC Youth League will be intensifying our call for Economic Freedom in our Lifetime.  

A Youth Land Rally will be convened in the Daggaskraal community in Mpumalanga to mark the successful achievement of land ownership by indigenous people as called for by Cde Pixley Isa Ka Seme

We will host its National ANCYL Youth Month rally in the Bethlehem in the Free State. The rally will be preceded by build up political schools and youth cafes throughout the country.

Statement issued by the African National Congress Youth League, June 5 2012

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