Statement of the YCLSA National Committee
Held at Emoyeni Conference Centre, Johannesburg from 5-7 September 2014
Challenges of youth unemployment; preparations for YCLSA 4th National Congress; NUMSA and EFF opportunism on the Public Protector; Wits SRC Elections; and the Palestinian Question
7 September 2014
Introduction
The National Committee of the Young Communist League of South Africa held its ordinary meeting over the weekend from Friday 5 September 2014 to Sunday 7 September 2014 to discuss, amongst various issues:-
- the continued South Africa's challenge of youth unemployment;
- the political situation in the country;
- preparations for our 4th National Congress;
- the meaning and context of a ‘radical economic transformation' and the ‘second phase of the NDR';
- And the international situation.
Towards Jobs for Youth Summit II
The National Committee noted that next month marks 18 months since the adoption of the Youth Employment Accord in April 2013, and six months after the adoption of the Declaration on Youth Jobs and Skills at the Presidential Youth Indaba early in the year. The National Committee received an input from the Deputy Minister of Economic Development, Comrade Madala Masuku. We note the more than 5.3 million youth jobs that have been created in the last 18 months through EPWP and various other government interventions and projects, and the R2.6bn invested by the NYDA, SEIFA and the IDC towards youth enterprise, youth jobs created through the PICC and many other initiatives.
We note however that there are still 3.4 million young people without jobs, and 264 000 of those are graduates. The number of graduates or unemployed youth with a qualification becomes higher if we include young people with Grade 12 or an FET qualification.
We believe that to deal with this we need a revision of the Youth Employment Accord 2 that will move beyond the quick wins and now focus on the following:
- Low-end skills and sustainable youth jobs with specific targets agreed to by various sectors of the economy, driven in the same way as the PICC and the IPAP;
- A bottom-up approach of youth enterprise and co-operatives development instead of an elite and top-down approach of the creation of a so-called black industrialists;
- Focus on the development of the productive capacity of our local economy in manufacturing to satisfy the 70% commitment for local procurement;
- Stringent commitments by the private sector on localized reinvestment and employment creation, especially major industries such as mining, finance, services, manufacturing and agriculture;
- The filling of state-funded vacancies;
- The reopening of colleges of education, nursing and agriculture;
- Clear strategies on local beneficiation of mineral resources and other raw materials, including the nationalisation of SASOL and ARCELLO-Mittal or the creation of national steel company;
- Strengthening our work in education and skills development through existing Technical and Vocational Education and Training institution and the Sector Education and Training Authorities; and
- The consolidation co-ordination of Community Works Programme, Community Development Work, Extended Publics Works Programme and the National Youth Service
YCL will call for a reassessment of government youth empowerment machinery and programme to ensure better alignment, coordination and mainstreaming of youth empowerment in core programmes.
Second phase of the Accord must also have a deal for young workers that are already in the labour market. Specifically, improvement of working conditions for young workers trapped in low paying jobs.
We will be engaging with the Ministry of Economic Development, various youth formations, business, trade unions in building towards a Youth Employment Accord 2. We will also be setting up a smaller working group to concretize our proposals on "Jobs for Youth" in preparation for the Youth Employment Accord 2.
The Opportunistic reaction on the Public Protector's Report on the Security Upgrades at the house of the President
The YCLSA noted the opportunism displayed by certain individual leaders of COSATU and NUMSA in calling for the "full implementation of the recommendations by the Public Protector" and in defence of her office. This liberal opportunism rests on a contradictory double agenda. The opportunists call for selective "full implementation of recommendations" of the Public Protector's recommendations depending on their political acquaintances or enemies.
The same opportunism was displayed some few weeks ago by the EFF who disrupted Parliamentary proceedings through acts of hooliganism. The EFF behaved like hoodlums and real thugs as though they were high on banned substances. In this intoxication they had quickly forgotten about the Public Protector's investigative report titled ‘On the Point of Tenders' (Report: No 10 of 2012/13).
In that report, the Public Protector Advocate Thuli Madonsela found that through his private Ratanang Family Trust and interest in Guilder Investment the EFF leader was involved and benefitted from money acquired fraudulently, corruptly and unlawfully. The SA Receiver of Revenue has moved to recover the tax owed, but where have the trade union opportunists and the EFF been to ask: "Pay back the tax and all the illicitly acquired money"?
It is interesting that the trade union opportunists and the EFF have also not asked the leader of the EFF to publicly account on allegations that surfaced in the media that he may be paying tax through illicit money from the cigarette cartel that destroys our jobs and our economy. They have not asked him to account publicly and disclose all the sources of the money he is using to pay the tax.
We have in the past called for a full investigation on Nkandla by state institutions, and that those who are found guilty should be held liable. We recognise the appointment of Parliamentary ad-hoc committee on the various sets of investigative reports on the matter. We call on all South Africans to give this process the space and time it deserves in terms of the powers vested on Parliament by the Constitution. In defence of our democracy, the YCLSA condemns in strongest terms possible any behaviour that seeks to undermine or bring the important role that our democratically elected Parliament should play under duress.
We condemn the turning of parliament into a mockery by the EFF, who confuse being radical and militant to being rude, ill disciplined and disrespectful. The conduct of the EFF has brought disrepute, and had an impact on the integrity of the institution of parliament. We promote the culture of robust debate, and believe that parliament should be the epitome of such debate as has been the case in the last twenty years, however, the degeneration that we witnessed in the few weeks demonstrate how the EFF wants to turn our democracy into a mockery.
We also note that the Office of the Public Protector should be defended and protected from those who seek to undermine its work, especially its constitutional and legislative mandate. The YCLSA fully embraces this position, and will in addition defend the office from being politically exploited and used to fulfil factional sectarian agendas in the name of being defended. We will also defend the Office of the Public Protector from being undermined by the Public Protector herself through unwarranted political gimmick.
Defend our democracy; defend state organs from capture by external and hostile forces!
The YCLSA noted with deep concern the machinations and turmoil going on in the National Prosecutions Authority. Together with the occasional behaviour of overreaching displayed by Advocate Thuli Madonsela
The National Committee condemned in the strongest terms possible an emerging co-ordinated agenda to seize power by undemocratic means through regime change tactics including the infiltration of state institutions through entryist methods.
That a former prosecutor Glynnis Breytenbach became a DA MP immediately after her resignation from the National Prosecutions Authority is one case in point. Her name was kept confidential when the DA Parliamentary list was first unveiled. This must not be taken lightly.
Similarly, the many journalists who appeared in DA's Parliamentary lists show that the agenda is broad, and that this is consistent with the increased hostility towards the ANC and Alliance in the media.
Those who lost the internal battle whether to drop the charges or not have resorted to a political party, the DA, to give it information to contest in court the so called "spy tapes". Those people, like Breytenbach, will then work within a political party, the DA. If there is any doubt how compromised and politicised the NPA and the media are, here lies the evidence. We have no doubt that as soon as the DA has finished listening to the "spy tapes", they will be leaking them to the media and accusing the ANC of doing that, just as is the modus operandi in the Public Protectors office.
Transform the financial sector to serve the people!
The National Committee noted the collapse of African Bank, its bailout by the SA Reserve Bank which has since placed African Bank under curatorship, and the downgrading of the major South African banks by Moody's on the basis that the bailout imposed a 10% "haircut" or share of loss with investors. The National Committee also noted the announcement by the Reserve Bank to set up formal independent investigation into the business trade and dealings of African Bank.
The bailout of African Bank was met with either deafening silence or support by the forces that have, for many years now, been telling us that the state must not intervene in the economy. The essential motive by this neoliberal forces, some with a hybrid of both racist liberalism and apartheid conservatism, such as the DA, and the unelected imperialist rating agencies such as Moody's has been exposed for all to see.
The neoliberals and their backers want a strong state that intervenes in the economy on behalf of the rich such as the banks and institutional financial investors and not on behalf of the workers and the poor. In the case of African Bank bailout the workers and poor who are indebted as a result of the reckless and unsecured lending practices are not being bailed out and this is not the concern of the neoliberals. The bailout was for the rich investors and Moody's reaction through the downgrade of the major banks was that it was not enough and the rich should have been protected against any loss.
The SACP and Financial Sector Campaign Coalition have long highlighted the dangers or reckless and unsecured lending practices which the Reserve Bank simplistically dismissed. Against this background the independent investigation announced by the Reserve Bank into African Bank could amount to a waste of resources, in addition considering the previous announcement by the Reserve Bank that it had for over a year been engaging with African Bank. The crisis of African Bank clearly suggests that the engagement was either fruitfulness or subdued by the Reserve Bank's previous defence of African Bank as well as the interventions that led to the National Credit Regulator's mandate regarding investigation into reckless and unsecured lending practices being stifled and even curtailed through the so-called twin-peak model.
The YCLSA reaffirms its support for SACP's Financial Sector Transformation Campaign which seeks to achieve a complete overhaul of our country's financial architecture to serve the people!
Towards the YCLSA 4th National Congress
On the 10-14 December the YCLSA will be hosting its 4th National Congress in the City of Cape Town, University of the Western Cape. The Conference will be attended by more than 1200 delegates from all the nine provinces, representing 53 districts, 2400 branches and audited 89 000 members. At the end of September the NWC will be launching discussion documents to this effect, which will include a project on the 11 years of the YCLSA and its impact on South African politics. This National Committee has instructed our structures to begin discussions on the question of leadership, and will be encouraging a transparent, constructive engagement which will maintain the unity of the organization intact.
Issued by the YCLSA National Committee, September 7 2014
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