Deepen, advance and defend the NDR towards socialism

The South African Communist Party (SACP) in the Eastern Cape convened its Provincial Working Committee (PWC) on the 16-17 May 2015 at NEHAWU offices in Kokstad. The meeting was held for the PWC to carry out organisational work in-between PEC meetings and to prepare for the Party’s Special Congress.

The PWC spent the first day interacting with SACP structures in Alfred Nzo District through a well-attended district council. The Council was held for the PWC to assess the state of the organisation in the district. We satisfied with the state of the organisation in the district. District Leadership of Alfred Nzo is building an active, independent and campaigning SACP, despite the ongoing onslaught against communists in the area.

The passing of Mme Ruth Mompati.

The meeting observed a moment of silence, paying our last respect to Comrade Ruth Mompati, African National Congress (ANC) stalwart and Umkhonto weSizwe (MK) veteran, Isithwalandwe - Seaparankwe. “We join scores of our people in sending our heartfelt condolences to the entire family and relatives of Comrade Ruth Mompati. We also extend our condolences to our long standing historical ally the ANC, MK Veterans’ Association, our liberation Alliance and the democratic movement of our country as a whole, for this loss” said Xolile Nqatha, SACP Provincial Secretary.

Alleged plans of the Daily Dispatch

The meeting expressed shock on the alleged plans of the Daily Dispatch newspaper to pursue the Eastern Cape Premier, Comrade Phumulo Masualle. This has confirmed our long held view that over the years the Daily Dispatch has positioned itself as an opposition to the ANC led alliance and the South African government. The Daily Dispatch has for a long time behaved as a newsletter of the opposition, in particular the DA as the leader of the Anti-majoritarian offensive and the shop steward of those in control of the economy of our country, who remain dominantly white.

The newspaper has been very malicious in covering the stories such that you would conclude that there is no other voice in the province. The Daily Dispatch has always been biased in its reporting that it would run stories about our organisation(s) without soliciting comments from the organisation, and claim that “not reached by the time of going to print”.

This confirms our assertion on the DA activism in the newsrooms of many of the bourgeoisie print media. We have said this about the former editor Brandon Boyle, Helga Van Staden (DA Councillor) and many others who pretended to be journalists whilst they were DA activists who appeared in the DA list on the previous general elections.

We find this as a direct insult to the former editor of the Daily Dispatch, Donald Woods, who we fondly remember as one of the progressive journalists.

We have an undisputed history as the South African Communists of having fought for freedom of the press and progressive journalism. We are gravely concerned by what is happening in these media houses and support the independent regulation of the media as opposed to self-regulations.

Economic transformation of the Eastern Cape

Our province should make use of the Provincial Planning Commission to set the province in a new growth path; a productive and redistributive economy which will mostly benefit the workers and the poor. This should be used as concrete planning towards fully developed industrialisation in our province with a vibrant and sustainable co-operatives sector.

There is an undisputed need for the skills development in line with our developmental agenda. We should produce more engineers, artisans, etc. The nurturing of such skills would require the lessening of the usage of consultants by our government and hiring of skilled young people at an acceptable remuneration rate.

We reiterate our call to the Eastern Cape government to curb the challenge of unemployment, poverty and inequality through, amongst other measures, the radical agrarian reform and food production and massive infrastructure rollout. The provincial planning and action should be centred on these and a great need to maintain the infrastructure we have in the communities, like fixing of appalling roads, etc.

We are quite concerned about the centre that appears not to be holding in the province, given some of the persisting challenges, including the two Metros and other areas in the local state and provincial departments.

We commit ourselves as the SACP to work with our allies in ensuring that the alliance revolutionary centre holds.

Xholobeni mining

The PWC meeting expressed concern on the flawed handling of the Xholobeni proposed mining, which by and large seeks to side-line the community. We believe that there exist an alliance of the elite that seeks to highjack the project for selfish interests that will leave the community poor with no meaning participation in term of ownership and control. We support a balanced view for development and environmental protection and will work with all interested parties from this perspective. The people of Xholobeni should be the ones deciding on what should happen in their land, any mining that should take place there should benefit the community at large.

We are calling upon the people of Xholobeni, Traditional leadership, people’s organs to unite and reject any form of exploitation of their natural resources excluding them. The SACP commits itself in working with the community in defending what is rightfully theirs against the greedy few.

We condemn the killings in Xholobeni and convey our heartfelt condolences to all the families who lost their loved ones.

Local government

We are concerned about the crumbling of local government in the province. At the core of this crisis is political infighting and deep seated corruption. Most of the municipalities in the Eastern Cape, in particular the bigger ones, have no sense of service delivery focus but peripheral issues.

As the party we have been participating in the meetings of alliance in attempts to quell the situation in all municipalities, which subsequently identified hot spots and agreed on an alliance approach. It is in this context that we are taken aback by the unilateral approach taken by the ANC in attending to the identified hot spots. No alliance meeting had ever agreed on the removal of mayoral committee members in the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality (BCMM).

We reiterate our call for leadership to take decisive action in the BCMM situation as it is getting uglier. We believe that leadership should not be triumphalistic on the court outcomes but attend to the root of the problem in the BCMM, because as leaders of the people we have failed to attend to the challenges in BCMM as far back as 2013.

At the core of the conflict and inability to resolve the current challenges represent pockets of both the organisation and municipality that have been captured by tenderpreneurs. All actions are nothing else that designed to protect individual interests and the people.

University of Fort Hare SRC Elections

The PWC raised its concern on the loss of SASCO to the liberal DA student organisation at the University of Fort Hare SRC elections. We are of the view that this is not only a loss of SASCO as an organisation but that of all progressive forces. More scientific analysis of the root causes and strategic response to arrest this revolutionary setback and its re-occurrence elsewhere. 

One of the challenges in the Higher Education sector is the NSFAS delays and corruption in the scheme. We note the efforts of the Department of Higher Education and Training to attend to this.

Part of the issues to be confronted by the movement is the financialisation of our formations, including SASCO, where private business interests seek to capture parts of our formations as instruments to hunt tenders for certain individuals within and outside the movement.

The SACP provincial leadership will be engaging with cadres in the University of Fort Hare through our Progressive Youth Alliance (PYA) in seeking to find a sustainable solution to all the challenges there. 

Wage negotiations

As the SACP in the Eastern Cape we are reiterating the call by our national leadership in saying NO to the privatisation of Eskom!

Any move to privatise Eskom will enrich a greedy elite, at the expense of our people, and cannot be allowed.

We are calling on negotiating parties in the Public Service Bargaining Commission (PSBC) and the National Treasury to reach finality on the negotiations. As the SACP we stand for better conditions of work for all workers in our economy, and that is our attitude to the negotiations.  

We support COSATU in the struggle for decent work and living wage for workers. As the SACP, we are of the firm view that the democratic developmental state we seek to build needs professionalised civil servants who are not in business and workers who are loyal to the cause of democratic transformation and NOT the private banks or “omatshonisa”. This can only be achieved through bettering their conditions of service, including housing allowance, medical aid and decent income.  

Conclusion:

We recommit ourselves as the South African communist to work tirelessly with and for the people in carrying forward their struggles towards a classless society.

Statement issued by the SACP Eastern Cape, May 18 2015