SACP Central Committee Press Statement

The SACP Central Committee met in Johannesburg over the weekend of 26-28 August 2011. The CC discussed a comprehensive political report on current national and international realities. The CC also discussed various sectoral reports on health, the manufacturing sector, public transport, and land reform. Finally, the CC discussed a comprehensive organizational report and reached decisions on the Party's forthcoming Red October Campaign.

The centrality of a principled and disciplined Alliance unity

While the SACP has no intention of interfering with internal processes within the ANC, the CC nonetheless warmly welcomed moves by the leadership of the ANC to assert authority, and to reaffirm the core principles of our ANC-led movement - non-racialism, non-sexism, and a respect for organizational democracy and discipline. Together with our Alliance partners the SACP has a collective responsibility to advance and defend the revolutionary morality of our movement.

The CC warmly appreciated the Statement released last week by COSATU's CEC, and in particular COSATU's reaffirmation of the statement from our bilateral that "the unity of the SACP and COSATU constituted the bedrock for advancing, consolidating and defending the national democratic revolution, the most direct path to a socialist SA based on meeting social needs and not private profits."

The CC agreed that, while remaining vigilant about the dangers of factionalism and indiscipline, it was important for the SACP not to become overly inward looking at the expense of keeping our focus upon the persisting structural crises of unemployment, poverty and inequality that afflict the broad working class in South African.

In this context the Alliance secretariat has reaffirmed our common programme of action with a particular focus in the coming period on joint common action at the branch local level focused on empowering communities to adopt schools in distress, and to address the scourge of corruption.

In line with the Alliance Secretariat programme, the CC agreed that one of the core themes of this year's SACP Red October Campaign will be education - not just schools, but also the wider challenges of skills and training, with a particular focus on the girl child.

The SACP continues to support COSATU and its affiliates in their struggle for a living wage, and we salute those affiliates that have recently led successful actions. We call for a speedy resolution of the municipal workers strike. The CC joined COSATU in condemning undisciplined action in the course of the SAMWU strike, and particularly attacks on street traders in Cape Town. Actions like these can de-legitimise just struggles, and can divide the broad working class and popular forces. We call upon the trade union leadership to act decisively in such instances.

A common Alliance programme will allow us to work with the organized working class in struggles around social wage issues (including education, health-care, public transport and housing) that affect a wider range of workers and the unemployed urban and rural poor.

As part of empowering popular forces to practically wage struggles for a social wage, another core component of this year's Red October campaign, we will take up a struggle to build a cooperative banks movement.

Challenges in the health sector - towards an NHI

The CC received an update report on challenges in the health sector and the recently released government National Health Insurance policy paper from Minister of Health, cde Aaron Motsoaledi. The CC welcomed progress that is being made towards the progressive roll out of a solidarity-based NHI that will help to decommodify the basic human right to health care for all. The CC however expressed concern that in the draft policy the idea of a "multi-payer" principle has been smuggled in.

The CC agreed that while an NHI will help to revitalize an often ailing, poorly managed and demoralised public health care sector, it was also imperative to immediately and urgently address existing problems before the roll-out itself. These problems include inappropriate appointments at senior management level in many public hospitals, neglect of facilities, and widespread demoralization among health-care workers.

At the same time, it would be wrong not to note the unsustainable current trajectory of health-care provision in PRIVATE health-care. Essentially, we are seeing the increasing Americanisation of private health care in SA. There are diminishing numbers of South Africans who can afford medical aid and those who are on medical aid frequently find their cover running out long before the end of the year. Medical aid schemes are themselves under serious pressure, and many ordinary GPs are also battling to keep their practices sustainable. The key beneficiaries in all of this are private speculative investors in the increasingly oligopolistic private hospital business and the highly paid specialists who occupy rooms in these facilities.

Another worrying development is the sudden boom in health-care litigation with the attendant impact on health-care providers' increasing insurance costs, pre-emptive over treatment of patients, with a further impact on ballooning treatment costs. Much of this recent Americanising trend in the health litigation has been driven by unscrupulous legal firms whose multi-billion rand businesses have been squeezed by recent amendments to the Road Accident Fund and the impending establishment of a no-fault Road Accident Benefit scheme.

Grave threats of increasing de-industrialisation

The CC discussed a report by CC member and minister of Trade and Industry, cde Rob Davies: "South Africa's de-industrialisation threat and the need for a decisive set of policy responses". The report noted that manufacturing has led almost all cases of sustained, high post-1945 growth - from Brazil, China, through Japan, Malaysia and Singapore. By contrast, the manufacturing sector in SA has lagged seriously, and has recently suffered the double-whammy of currency overvaluation and the impact of the global capitalist crisis. Manufacturing employment remains well below 2008 levels in SA. Growth in SA remains unsustainably consumption-led, with finance, insurance, real estate and business services making a disproportionate contribution to GDP.

This imbalance reflects continued structural imbalances within our growth path, and the over-weaning influence of the financial sector on our macro-economic policies. Faced with the prospect of a persisting global capitalist crisis and the possibility of a double-dip recession, it is absolutely imperative that government reviews macro-economic policy to find ways to address our over-valued rand through, amongst other things, transaction taxes. In addition, and following the example of Brazil, for instance, we need to release many more targeted resources to assist ailing sectors of our manufacturing sector.

All of these challenges also point to the possibility (and necessity) of striking tactical alliances between government, working class formations and capital in the manufacturing sector. The assumption that the finance sector represents the interests of capital in general is misplaced.

The struggle for public transport

The CC further received a report from deputy general secretary and deputy minister of Transport, cde Jeremy Cronin, on challenges and progress made in the struggle for affordable, safe and accessible public transport in our towns, cities and rural areas. The CC saluted the role of the SACP in Gauteng province for joining Alliance partners and others in criticizing the impending e-tolling on Phase A1 of the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (GFIP). The CC noted that the R20-billion public debt on this first phase of GFIP was yet another example of massive spending on wrong priorities.

The ostensible rationale for the GFIP project was to address congestion challenges in Gauteng. However, internationally, it is widely recognized that the expansion of freeways seldom resolves congestion challenges, and often, through a process known as "induced demand" actually worsens congestion in the short to medium term. The provision and prioritization of public transport, the shifting of freight from road to rail, and a concerted effort to build more compact towns and cities are much more effective means to addressing congestion.

Apart from this, the CC agreed that spending over R20-billion on freeway improvement when there were much more pressing transport infrastructure challenges was problematic.

A much greater focus needs to be placed on rural roads, township roads, and public transport infrastructure. In this regard, the CC noted that only 2% of the vehicles currently travelling on Phase A1 of GFIP were public transport vehicles. The class bias of this R20-billion expenditure is all the more apparent if we remember that only 31% of South African households have access to a car.

The CC agreed that the public outrage directed against GFIP should be used to halt any further phases of GFIP, and that it should be used as an opportunity to mobilise a much wider popular struggle, particularly at the local level, for the prioritizing of the rolling out of integrated public transport systems and infrastructure that has a real impact on the lives of millions of workers and urban and rural poor.

Draft Green Paper on Land Reform

CC member and deputy minister for Rural Development and Land Reform, cde Thulas Nxesi, briefed the CC on government's "Draft Green Paper on Land Reform", released earlier this month. The CC welcomed the strategic thrust of the Green Paper, notably its emphasis on a re-invigorated land reform programme to deracialise our rural economy, breaking with the past without significantly disrupting agricultural production and food security. The Green Paper correctly strikes a dynamic balance between the imperative of redistribution and productive work, emphasizing that redistribution that does not generate sustainable livelihoods, employment and incomes must be avoided.

The CC welcomed the proposal to establish a Land Management Commission and a high-powered institution, a Land Valuer-General to overcome many speculative distortions and corrupt practices. The CC also agreed that, rather than complaining about the Property Clause in the Bill of Rights, popular forces, including government, should show much greater political will in using the considerable space provided by this Clause.

As a welcome judgment last week in the Constitutional Court implicitly recognized, the Property Clause is NOT a traditional liberal property clause - it allows for expropriation "for a public purpose or in the public interest". While compensation is required, that compensation DOES NOT have to be based purely on market value - but must have regard to:

• "the current use of the property" - does this not impact upon absentee landlords, or speculative property investors, or water-guzzling golf estates?;
• "the history of the acquisition and use of the property" - does this not require us to consider colonial dispossession, Group Areas removals, land used by the apartheid army, or hurried privatization before the democratic breakthrough of 1994?; and
• "the extent of direct state investment and subsidy in the acquisition and beneficial capital improvement of the property" - does this not have a direct bearing on apartheid-era and post-1994 subsidization of SASOL, or of white farms, or of former ISCOR property?

As the ANC leadership moves to assert its authority, it is also critical that we draw a clear line between the great majority within our ANC-led alliance and those forces who talk recklessly about the rule of law and our progressive Constitution. Failure to draw a clear line between ourselves and the demagogues plays directly into the hands of a range anti-majoritarian conservative liberals from Afriforum, through the FW De Klerk Foundation to the DA who now pose as the "true defenders" of our Bill of Rights and Constitution.

They do this by dumbing down the Constitution into a narrow check-and-balance watchdog over the executive and a defender of existing powers and privileges. In fact, our Bill of Rights and Constitution represent a clarion call for radical transformation.

The CC resolved that another core component of our Red October campaign will be to build local people's committees for comprehensive rural development, with a particular emphasis on building a women's rural movement.

The anti-corruption campaign

CC agreed to take forward our anti-corruption campaign on the ground. In particular, we will seek in the course of our Red October campaign, to give greater practical content to this campaign. The "tenderization" of the state, including the local state, has become a major source of corrupt behavior. Increasingly the state has abandoned its responsibility to be an active doer working closely with the energies and aspirations of popular forces - instead, state responsibilities are tendered-out with a great deal of rent-seeking and corrupt behavior.

As part of a corrective to this problem the SACP will be campaigning for a massive expansion of the expanded public works and community works programmes. Why package everything into a tender? Why should the local state and local popular capacities not be harnessed jointly so that government and communities work together to build their own housing, their own schools, maintain their own roads and infrastructure? The struggle against corruption is not just a moral struggle, but also needs to address systemic features in the state, and increasingly give ordinary citizens a productive role.

Libya

The CC strongly condemned NATO's illegal and aggressive role in Libya, driven by a regime change and a predatory economic agenda. NATO deliberately abused and flouted the spirit and letter of the no-fly-zone UN Security Council vote 1973, going far beyond the provisions of that vote. The CC notes that in the course of the unfolding Arab Spring, our South African government has consistently supported the democratic rights of the people in the face of autocratic governments. We welcome this stance.

The CC condemned grave human rights abuses that appear to have been committed by both sides in the conflict and agreed that any sustainable way forward towards peace, stability and democracy will need to be guided by the AU road map championed by the South African government.

Swaziland

The CC noted our government's agreement to transfer the first tranche of Swaziland's SACU finances with certain conditions. While appreciating that even greater socio-economic collapse in Swaziland is not guaranteed to produce a progressive outcome, and may well have a negative impact on our own country, the SACP is disappointed that much more stringent requirements were not placed upon this so-called "bail-out". In particular, it is outrageous that the banning of political parties persists in Swaziland, and that there is still no serious commitment to a well-defined transitional process to democracy is in place.

The CC noted growing worker and popular activism in Lesotho, Malawi and Botswana and resolved to support all progressive movements in our region seeking to defend the interests of the workers and the poor.

The CC welcomes moves in the United Nations to recognize the state of Palestine as a full member of the international community of nations and the UN.

The CC wishes the Springboks well in the forthcoming World Rugby Cup campaign, and congratulates Banyana Banyana on their victory against Ethiopia.

Statement issued by the SACP, August 28 2011

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