EFF’s 19th Central Command Team statement
15 May 2023
The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) held its 19th Central Command Team meeting in Ekurhuleni, from the 12th to the 14th of May 2023. The meeting received political and organisational reports, and made an extensive reflection on all issues confronting the South African society.
The year 2023 marks 10-years since the formation of the Economic Freedom Fighters, marking 10-Years of unbroken struggle, of the only weapon in the hands of the oppressed, exploited, and dejected masses of our people. The EFF Central Command Team reflected on the progress of all preparations towards the 10th Year Anniversary, which will be held at the FNB Stadium on the 29th of July 2023, and will be a Red Festival of the Poor, that will be remembered by history.
The 19th CCT is the first Central Command Team meeting of the EFF since we have assumed serious, and significant responsibilities in government. When the EFF was founded 10 years ago, we said we are government-in-waiting. We are here today, and boldly can say we are playing important government roles in the City of Johannesburg, City of Ekurhuleni, eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality, West Rand District Municipality, and Mogale City Local Municipality.
Our principle in government is that we are there to service the interests of the people.
We remind all our public representatives that no EFF Member of the Mayoral Committee, and no EFF Speaker of the Municipality is permitted to hold secret meetings with business people, and service providers to the municipality. Anyone found to be meeting with business people and service providers will be immediately removed from their positions of responsibility. Business people and service providers know the channels through which they must interact with government leaders, and it should never be in secret meetings.
Our participation in government should lead to the insourcing of workers, creation of jobs, fighting corruption, and must also lead to resolving the electricity crises through several interventions which our spheres of government are allowed to do.
The EFF's approach to government and governance is not the same as all other political parties because our people are a priority of all we seek to achieve. We will demonstrate to our people that we are a capable political party that will provide a clean and transparent government.
The EFF noted the successful launch of the 10th Year Anniversary celebrations, which started with the Media Launch held on the 28th of February 2023 at the Constitutional Hill in Johannesburg. The Media Launch exhibited 10-Years of existence of the EFF, as years of building a vanguard movement steeped in the culture and principles of a revolutionary party that is building the consciousness of the working class, as we prepare to lead a socialist revolution.
The Media Launch was followed by the EFFTurns10 celebration with the children of Elkana Child Care Centre in the Western Cape. The EFF will host celebrations in each Province, at residential care centres for children, or the elderly, as a way to symbolise our respect for past generations, and our faith in the future which has been abandoned.
We appreciate the donations from ordinary South Africans to fund the revolution because donations to the EFF are directed towards the maximal benefits of ordinary South Africans. Even before we are government, we as the EFF have utilised our internal resources to build homes for homeless poor people, to refurbish schools and early childhood development Centres, to clean our communities, and to fund education for young people. Donations to the EFF are also a means to protect the organization from opportunistic donors, who will use their money to influence the organization towards a wrong direction and agenda.
We extend our gratitude and appreciation to South Africans who are donating money through the SMS and online donations of RIO, R20, R30 and other amounts, and also appreciate the people who are donating groceries and cows towards the 10th Anniversary celebrations. We have thus far received 45 cows, and we will consolidate and declare all the monetary contributions and donations we receive from ordinary people. As has been demonstrated in the several declarations of political party funding by the IEC, the EFF receives less than I % of private political party donations, because the owners of money do not want the EFF to succeed.
We once again encourage High School students to participate in our 10th Anniversary Essay Competition. The Essay competition is an important opportunity to contribute to the history and character of the EFF, which will be government of South Africa and in many African countries starting from 2024.
Furthermore, the EFF has launched a Stage Play called 'LERUO', which reflects on the journey of the EFF through theatre and music, and a close relationship between arts and revolution. LERUO has been to Soweto, Springs, and the State Theatre in Tshwane since its opening show on Friday, the 12th of May 2023, and will be going to 27 different locations across South Africa. The EFFs Central Command Team appreciated the fact that the organisation is celebrating and marking its 10th Year Anniversary through activities that raise the consciousness of our people, and moving away from the culture of large displays of wealth, and the abuse of alcohol and young women as objects. The Arts and Revolution are almost always mutually reinforcing, and we thank Commissar Fana Mokoena and the brilliant team of actors and actresses that are playing a leading role in LERUO.
The EFFs Central Command Team further welcomed the progress and effort made towards the programmes of massive Political Education and Voter Registration as the year 2023 was marked as the year of these programmes. The CCT re-committed itself to maximum focus to ensure that these programmes do not end up as activities the organisation speaks to itself, but must raise the levels of consciousness of society, and position the EFF as a leader of the organised revolution.
The Central Command Team reflected on the 30 by-elections that the organisation contested in the period under review, and welcomed the decisive victory in the Free State, Dihlabeng Municipality Ward 17. However, the CCT noted the unsatisfactory performance where the organisation registered a decline in Eastern Cape, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, and the Northern Cape.
As a result, the CCT resolved to apply itself maximally to all by-elections and aim for complete victory, as anything other than growth and victory for the EFF will be treated as failure and counter-revolutionary. This applies to by-elections that are taking place in Ekurhuleni, Lesedi, eThekwini, Mandeni and uMzimkhulu now on the 24th of May 2023, and all by-elections that will follow thereafter on the 14th and the 28th of June 2023, and the 19th of July 2023.
The EFF Central Command Team welcomed the dedication and commitment demonstrated by fighters and ground forces in the manner in which they have executed the Andries Tatane Clean-Up Campaign. This campaign, carried out in honour of Andries Tatane, who was killed by the police fighting for service delivery, has thus far demonstrated that our people are not sub-humans who want to live with rubbish at their doorstep, but long for support and resources to keep their communities clean.
The EFF Central Command Team welcomed the participation of all residents who joined the Andries Tatane Clean-Up Campaign. The CCT further welcomed the contribution by the business community who, out of their goodwill, availed resources to support the cleaning campaign. The EFF calls on all residents to join the Andries Tatane Clean-Up Campaign every Saturday, and also calls on all municipal caucuses to adopt motions tabled by the EFF caucuses for cleaning campaigns.
We call on everyone to buy dinner tables for the 10th Anniversary Gala Dinner, which will take place on the 27th of July 2023. No one should avoid associating with the EFF, and no one must be intimidated by the dying organisations because in its 10 years of existence, the EFF has had to deal with the arrogance of dying organisations, which intimidate people from associating with the EFF.
As we mark 10 Years of service to the principles embodied by our Founding Manifesto, the EFF Central Command Team noted with concern the unsatisfactory performance of Public Representatives in Parliament, Provincial legislatures, and municipal councils, as the impact on governance is not as impactful as it once was.
The CCT resolved to hold Public Representatives accountable for what they do on a daily basis to impact the lives of our people, both in the corridors of government, and in our communities. This means we want verifiable reports of schools, clinics, which Public Representatives have adopted, and informal settlements that they have adopted, reports of insourcing motions that they have tabled in their municipal councils, community meetings they held to give reports and take mandate as servants of the people — and we want to see them leading service delivery protests.
We reiterate our call that Parliament must establish a dedicated Portfolio or Standing Committee to oversee the President and Presidency as whole. The President has centralized a lot of functions in his Office, and there is no dedicated oversight of the work he does. It is therefore long overdue that a separate committee must be established to oversee the President, and that does not require a study tour to determine. There is absolutely no need to take a study tour to Britain to study how a President must be held accountable.
The EFF Central Command Team noted with extreme concern the dismal failure of the governing party, to put practical and implementable solutions to address ongoing and escalating electricity blackouts. The EFF was vindicated because it is now accepted that it was a premature decision to rush to close coal power stations, or talks of abandoning coal as central to the generation of electricity in South Africa. The loans to abandon coal were opportunistic, and driven by interference by imperialist forces who want to micromanage South Africa's energy policy, driven by greed and profit at the expense of the lives of our people, our children's education, and efforts to fight crime that continues to spiral out of control.
The EFF has made proposals, and these include amongst others:
1. Repair the existing fleet of power generation; and
2. Invest in clean coal technologies to increase the energy availability factor.
3. Invest in additional generation capacity in South Africa, and neighbouring countries.
4. Bring in floating power plants into the transmission grid.
5. Pursue off-grid household and institutional solutions (i.e. Embedded
generation).
6. Decrease the usage demand of mega electricity users.
7. Invest in the transmission capacity.
8. Invest in and practicalise the industrial and manufacturing capacity for embedded generation/off-grid solutions.
We are 100% convinced that if South Africa were to source the expertise from our BRICS partners, particularly the People's Republic of China, and the Russian Federation, we will be able to provide electricity to all our people. China and Russia have massive experience in electricity generation, transmission, and distribution and should therefore be our first point of call.
There are additionally capable South Africans who can bring stability to ESKOM, but they are being unfairly and irrationally persecuted in the name of so called State capture.
There are several solutions that can be implemented at global, continental, sub-continental, national, and sub-national levels, and these are long, medium, and short-term solutions.
1. The global cooperation long-term solution will be to give the Russian Federation's Rosatom, a sensible power purchase agreement to build a nuclear power plant, which can produce a minimum of 3000 megawatts and a maximum of 6000 megawatts on a basis of a 20-yearlong build-operate-transfer (BOT) contract.
2. The continental long-term solution includes investing in, and completion of the Inga-Dam hydroelectric project in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
3. The sub-continental medium-term solution includes investing in neighbouring countries' electricity capacity, such as investment in phase 2 of Cahora Bassa hydroelectric power generation in Mozambique, and other sources of electricity in the SADC region, and within the Southern Africa Power Pool.
4. The sub-continental medium to short term solution will be to purchase the electricity surpluses from the neighbouring countries, particularly Mozambique.
The most immediate solution to the crisis of electricity in South Africa is to plug in the floating power stations into the grid. We know for a fact that the reason Karpowership is not plugged into the grid despite being approved and despite the environmental concerns being dismissed is due to the fact that politicians from the ruling party are negotiating for bribes that must be paid to them. How on earth does anyone threaten the entire economy and livelihoods of millions of our people because they are demanding a bribe.
Whilst the EFF Central Command Team viewed the proposed solutions as most suitable, practical and implementable, we are fully aware that the government has no interest in resolving the crisis and as a result, we may experience a complete grid collapse, where South Africa will be plunged into darkness, for days, weeks, and possibly months.
We reiterate our call that Mr. Cyril Ramaphosa must step down as South Africa's President due to his repeated and persistent failures on everything. Our country is collapsing and a grid collapse will lead to the disruption of water supply, disruption of network connectivity, and high levels of crimes and looting. Ramaphosa must therefore step down with immediate effect, to avoid massive insurrection, and chaos which will occur when there is total grid collapse. Ramaphosa must step down will immediate effect.
The Central Command Team noted the continued aggression of NATO backed by the United States of America who want to dictate to the whole world who everyone should love or hate, and who should be declared enemies and who should be declared friends.
While we are aware of the inability of the South African government to provide any meaningful arms to support Russia, we know that the United States of America is leading a global campaign to isolate and tarnish Russia's image. The US is amongst other things, using the ICC as an instrument to pursue narrow political agenda. It is clear that the USA seeks the destruction of Russia, and has no interests in a peaceful resolution to the conflict. They preach non-alignment when they are spending billions of dollars to support Ukraine with military equipment.
We as the EFF will be introducing a private members bill in Parliament to effect the withdrawal of South Africa from the International Criminals Court, which has thus far proven to be a biased instrument of global imperialism. The ICC did not do anything against former US President George Bush for the war in Iraq and turned a blind eye when Barack Obama and NATO illegally invaded Libya to assassinate Brother Leader Muammar Ghaddafi. South Africa and all African countries must withdraw from the ICC and the EFF will lead that effort.
We therefore call on all BRICS members to strengthen their unity and maximally support Russia to defend itself. This position also goes to show that as Africans, we cannot take a non-alignment or neutrality as the continuing conflicts such as the recent conflict in Sudan have demonstrated that there are proxy wars taking place. We cannot be threatened by disinvestment or trade relations at the expense of our right to determine our own foreign policy.
We as the EFF also support the de-dollarisation of the global economy. The senseless usage of the US dollar as the primary currency of exchange in the global economy has been largely abused by successive American governments. The world, particularly the global South must expedite the de-dollarisation of the global economy and South Africa must purposefully be on the forefront of this progressive global transition from American undue and unjustified hegemony.
The EFF Central Command Team reiterated its call for meaningful support and solidarity of all oppressed nations, particularly to the people of Palestine whose children continue to be killed in places of worship and their land is annexed by the apartheid Israel. The Palestinians are tired of messages of solidarity to protect themselves.
In conclusion, the EFF Central Command Team noted the continuing deterioration of the economic situation. The levels of unemployment, poverty and food insecurity due to the mismanagement of the economy poses a threat to South Africa's sovereignty.
People are losing homes and livelihoods because of failed fiscal and monetary policies that are driving austerity for profit at the expense of all other national interests including the lives of our people.
Crime in South Africa is one of the leading problems confronting our people, and as much as we may be opposed to the deployment of the army as it is a proven failed strategy, we need a solution to the crisis of crime. Gender-based violence continues to eat into the fabric of society with no end in sight as women are slaughtered every day. The sitting government has no solution to the crises of crime.
The Central Command Team must ensure that the EFF, as the only weapon in the hands of the masses of our people, is at all material times at the forefront and the last line of defence to this attack. As we move towards the 29th of July 2023, weekends are strictly for engagements with our people, and no internal meetings should sit on days when we know we have an obligation to interact with our communities. We need to balance the internal meetings, and constant interactions with our communities and people. Let us consolidate the ground for a socialist future. The EFF is turning 10 Years Old, we must re-energise and refocus as we are no longer the government in waiting, but we are the government our people deserve! I Thank You!
Issued by Sinawo Thambo, National Spokesperson, EFF, 15 May 2023
