NUMSA STATEMENT ON THE LAUNCH OF CORRUPTION WATCH: BUILD WORKING CLASS POWER FROM BELOW TO DEFEAT CAPITALISM!
Thursday 26 January 2012
The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) welcomes the launch of Corruption Watch, a people's centred and mass based organ, led by our federation, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) to expose and fight against corruption in all spheres of our society.
The launch of the Corruption Watch is appreciative of the threats posed by the scourge of corruption to the attainment of the envisaged Freedom Charter based society. This Launch closely follows the dismissal of two key government Ministers by President Jacob Zuma towards the end of the year on corruption related acts.
There has been is a growing outrage in our country, more especially from our formations at the pillaging of resources and theft by our public and private representatives or individuals. All these scandalous acts of corruption have been happening at the detrimental of the poor, since this deprives them of the much needed basic services and economic demands. This further spewed at the face of our revolution icon Nelson Mandela and his generation on what their stood and sacrificed for many years in Robben Island and others in exile!
This Launch of the Corruption Watch further strengthens the ANC-led Alliance electoral commitments of fighting the deep rot and scourge of corruption in our society. This affirms and shows the principled commitment by the Alliance to fight corruption without any fear of favour. The 2009 South African Communist Party (SACP) Special National Congress held in Polokwane, made the following observations in relation to corruption and crime:
"Together with our allies, and the great majority of South Africans, we Communists pledge to fight the scourge of crime and corruption. We will carry this struggle without fear or favour. Without worker vigilance, corruption will devour our democracy".
This we fully support and the Corruption Watch is a collective expression and resolve by COSATU and its affiliates to fight corruption wherever it manifest itself working together with our communities and working masses.
As NUMSA, our support and involvement in the Corruption Watch is not merely a moral grandstanding or populism, but an ideological and political struggle. We are fully conscious and convinced that corruption can only be defeated or wiped-away in our society, if we build working class power from below to overthrow Capitalism. We will never win the fight against corruption if we don't struggle to defeat Capitalism, because Capitalism is inherently a corrupt system. The deep-seated roots and imbedded opportunities of private accumulation of wealth, as opposed to societal accumulation of wealth to be socially-owned and shared by all, creates rotten conditions for corruption to rear its ugly head.
As trade unionists in South Africa, drawing from lessons or history of other countries in Africa and the world, it has always been workers, particularly from organised formations of the working class who have been butchered or killed for exposing acts of corruption. Many heroic and progressive democracies in Africa and elsewhere have degenerated under the watchful eye of the marginalized and the poor, like the then Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo) under Mobuto Seseseko, and more recently Angola under the current regime, where the political elites after ascending to power squander and bloat wealth at the face of the poor.
This Corruption Watch should be an activist Corruption Buster embodied in revolutionary morality and values, and should resist any attempts to be captured or manipulated by any sections opposed to the current ANC-led Alliance administration for its own sectarian and opportunistic ends. We will never hesitate to expose any agenda that seeks to use the Corruption Watch for political ends or agendas.
Lastly this launch of the Corruption Watch is a victory to great men and women who died in combat fighting and exposing acts of corruption in our country. This clearly shows that their blood did not die in vain.
It is Antonio Gramsci who reminds and teaches us that the organisation, mobilisation and consciountisation of civil society to build working class hegemony is a necessary development to build working class power.
We call on members of society to rally behind and support the work of the Corruption Watch.
Statement issued by Castro Ngobese, NUMSA national spokesperson, January 26 2012
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