Red October Campaign 2014/5 launch statement, presented by SACP General Secretary Comrade Blade Nzimande, Durban, October 5 2014

Today we celebrate the 97th Anniversary, and the fact that we are only three years away from the Centenary of the Great October Socialist Revolution that took place in Russia in 1917. Inspired by that great milestone in the history of humanity; in the history of the struggle for economic justice; the struggle for social justice; the struggle for democracy in its highest form, socialism; the struggle for complete human liberation and full social emancipation, we are gathered here today to launch our Red October Campaign 2014/5 under the theme:

Mobilise people's power to transform the financial sector and build a People's Economy!

Together with our allies and other progressive organisations we have scored important victories since the launch of our ‘Make the banks serve the people' campaign in 2000. This campaign has now developed into our broader Financial Sector Campaign. Today, we launch the intensification of this campaign to transform the financial sector as a whole to serve our broader developmental agenda.

Our campaign to make the banks serve the people have notched up, amongst others, the following victories:

1. We fought for access to banking services and achieved Mzansi Account for the millions of our people.

2. We fought for financial service regulation and institutional enforcement and we achieved the National Credit Act and the National Credit Regulator.

3. We fought and achieved regulatory legislation for the establishment of Co-operative Banks, and for the Co-operative Banks Development Agency to support the development of Co-operative Banks.

In fact without the foresight of our campaign and its victories the South African banking system would not withstand the global financial crash in 2008!

The banks and the financial sector, however, would not let go on their own accord, of their exploitative and parasitic agenda. The predators have been doing everything in their capacity to undermine and erode the gains we have achieved, and to find new ways of deepening and subordinating our people to financial-economic exploitation. Yes the poor do need access to affordable micro-credit, but not the predatory type of some of our banks and omashonisa.

The SACP calls on all our people, especially the workers and poor, to join forces and use our Financial Sector Campaign as a platform for change in our economy, politics and social lives. In particular the success of this campaign will contribute invaluably in raising the quality of life of our people.

Let us wage a relentless struggle against the highly monopolistic nature of our banking system. Let us build a more diversified banking sector, especially the state and co-operative banking sector. We cannot afford to have a banking sector dominated mainly by four oligopolies - Barclays-ABSA, FirstRand-FNB, Standard Bank and NedBank. These have now been joined by Capitec Bank, and a number of other private financial predators, including micro-lenders such as African Bank which has recently imploded. In addition, we are facing a multitude of small, plus fly-by-night loan sharks that only impoverish our people.

Certainly this is not a financial sector needed for a democratic developmental state we are seeking to build and also to drive a second, more radical phase of our transition!

In pushing for fundamental transformation of our economy to serve the majority of our people, the SACP will do everything in its capacity to mobilise support for the establishment of co-operatives and co-operatives banks, and the establishment of a state bank, and the transformation of the Post Bank to offer full banking services. Unlike the private monopoly banking sector which is interested only in profit, the State, co-operatives, and Post banks must prioritise the people, support production and development. We need to disrupt the logic of profitability first if we are to build a financial sector for the people.

Let us continue the struggle against the ever-rising exorbitant bank charges and high interest rates; let us prioritise production, economic and social transformation and development; let us combat consumerism and the selfish individualism imposed by neoliberalism.

Let us intensify the struggle to bring to an end the ‘20 year death sentence' payment period unjustly imposed on our people on mortgage housing by the banks. The compounded interest rate regime which underpins this death sentence must be abolished along with it. It is this imprisonment of the people by the banks in debt that makes them pay far more than the price of a single house on housing finance.

Let us intensify and continue our just fight against reckless and unsecured lending practices that sink our people, especially the workers and the poor, into unsustainably high levels of debt which cause many social problems that are currently devastating the household.

Let us push forward with our just fight to achieve access to financial services which take into account the plight of poor communities.

The credit bureau regime has proven to be dedicated to the super-exploitation and blacklisting of our people. In addition to the expunging of adverse credit records from the system, which we have brought into effect early this year as the fruit of our Financial Sector Campaign, it is clear that the prevailing credit bureau regime must be further transformed.

The financial sector, including the private monopoly insurance industry, is discriminating against people living with HIV. We must fight against this and advance alternative, caring policies.

We also call upon workers to ensure that trade union investment companies invest in a manner that advances our developmental goals. Let us also defeat business unionism, including the use of monies from the union investment companies for factional and even counter-revolutionary purposes. The NUMSA leadership clique is basically using money from its investment arm to fund divisions in COSATU and the Alliance as a whole.

Through the Red October Campaign 2014/5 the SACP will intensify the Financial Sector Campaign to:

1. Roll back neoliberalism in all its facets and policy terrains, including macro-economic policy, and deal with its phenomenon of financialisation.

2. Review and improve the National Development Plan in line with the outcomes of our last Alliance Summit, based on the principle that the plan is not cast in stone, and that it is subject to continuous engagement.

3. Break the investment strike that the bosses have embarked upon, and push for taxation of liquid capital above a defined ceiling.

4. Ensure consistent implementation of consumer and financial education.

5. Bring to an end the bail-out of the banks that implode as a result of reckless and unsecured lending practices that plunge our people into debt.

6. Ensure the development of Co-operative Banks with adequate support by the state.

7. Ensure that our Development Finance Institutions are reoriented towards a transformative developmental mandate.

8. Abolish the prohibitive cost of, and universalise access to communication; and ensure the immediate implementation of drop call rates reduction.

9. Push for an end to commoditisation and financialisation of basic services, including healthcare; defend and ensure that the National Health Insurance Scheme is successfully implemented.

10.Ensure that workers take control of their retirement funds and their investment; these should be directed towards expanding production, sustainable livelihood and access to education.

11.Linked with this, mobilise against business unionism -this is actually one of the major challenges facing the trade union movement in our country at present and that threatens its unity as some individuals advance unbridled personal ambitions, self-enrichment and private interests which are coded as workers' interests.

The Financial Sector Campaign has already laid the basis for an advance towards progress in building a progressive, working class-led financial sector transformation and activist consumer movement! We will use our Red October Campaign 2014/5 to deepen the work that has been done in this direction, uniting the broadest range of organisations towards a prosperous South Africa.

But also let us not lose focus in confronting all the forces who stand in our way in the struggle to advance the second, more radical phase of our revolution.

Defeat reactionary forces, defeat the forces of counter-revolution!

Birds of a feather flock together!

Our country is facing a co-ordinated agenda to achieve a regime change and dislodge the ANC-led Alliance from power. 

It is in this context that a right-wing alliance led by the party of white privilege, the DA, and the proto-fascist party of the most corrupt tenderpreneur - the plunderer of Limpopo - the EFF, has been forged. This reactionary right-wing alliance is based on a mutually reinforcing ironic competition with each other coalescing on an anti-ANC platform.

EFF voters who were mobilised not only on an anti-ANC ticket, but also on an anti-DA rhetoric, have now effectively been handed over to the leadership of the DA. Likewise, DA voters who were mobilised not only on an anti-ANC ticket, but also on an anti-EFF rhetoric, have now effectively been handed over to the leadership of the EFF. The common denominator in this right-wing reactionary alliance is an anti-ANC agenda which is at the same an anti-ANC led Alliance agenda.

Over and above this, the main agenda that brings together these ‘Birds of a feather' is reactionary opposition to our National Democratic Revolution, especially the turn to the second, more radical phase of our transition which is fiercely opposed by the DA. The hooliganisation of our Parliament by this reactionary right-wing alliance, the proto-fascist element of which arrived fresh from the box by turning Parliament into theatre, must be defeated.

The EFF's childishness and dearth of substance is referred to as "robustness" and "vibrancy" by some sections of the media.

What a shame?

If we are to succeed in:

•  transforming the financial sector to serve the people, which is one of the core commitments in the ANC-led Alliance election manifesto;
•  taking forward the second, more radical phase of our transition, which is the core programme facing the ANC-led Alliance,

There is no other alternative but to be decisive with power -there is no other option but to defeat all negatively-charged forces of reaction and counter-revolution.

Lastly, during this week billionaire Mark Shuttleworth who moved to the Isle of Man, announced that he is setting aside R250 million to challenge some of the economic decisions of our government. In particular, Shuttleworth seeks to achieve the exact opposite of what we want to achieve through our Financial Sector Campaign. In the absence of any other alternative or option, we must accept that the war chest that Shuttleworth has set up constitutes a declaration of hostility by him. We must oppose it!

Let us advance, deepen, defend and take responsibility for the second, more radical phase of our revolution!

Let us intensify the struggle for socialism!

Workers of all countries, unite!

You have nothing to lose but your chains!

Issued by the SACP, Durban, 5 October 2014

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