South African Communist Party Central Committee statement
3 December 2023
The South African Communist Party Central Committee met from Friday to Sunday, 1 to 3 December 2023.
The Central Committee wished the SACP’s ally, the Congress of South African Trade Unions, founded on 1 December 1985, a great 38th anniversary. We are looking forward to growing our alliance from strength to strength, working together.
Among others, the meeting received the Political Report presented by the General Secretary Solly Mapaila, as well as policy related reports, including on the National Student Financial Aid Scheme, the Unemployment Insurance Fund, and the state of local government in South Africa.
National Student Financial Aid Scheme
The SACP reaffirms its support for the continuation of the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS). The NSFAS has massively expanded college and university education and training to millions of students, especially from working-class and poor families who cannot afford student tuition fees.
In supporting the continuation of the NSFAS, the Central Committee attached great importance to clamping down on irregular and corrupt conduct, to protect this important national development resource.
The SACP calls on the government to reverse the 10 per cent cut in NSFAS allocation, as this austere measure will negatively impact access to college and university education for children from working-class and poor families.
Unemployment Insurance Fund
The Central Committee expressed support for the Minister of Employment Labour Thulas Nxesi’s action to stop the irregular R5 billion UIF contract awarded to a company called Thuja Capital. The UIF is a workers’ fund. It must be protected decisively, and no amount of allegations must deter the imperative to protect it.
A credible person who becomes aware of an alleged corruption activity cannot refuse to approach law enforcement authorities. The Central Committee therefore expressed support for all the ministers who started legal action against Thuja Capital CEO for defamation, among others. In the same vein, the SACP supports the ANC Secretary-General’s action to lay charges against the said CEO.
Local government
The Central Committee expressed deep concern about austerity and its impact on the performance of local government, especially infrastructure development and delivery of basic services. In the coming period, we will intensify our campaign to roll back austerity and tackle irregular conduct and corruption in municipalities to improve service delivery performance.
Rand manipulation
The Central Committee reiterated the SACP’s stance. Individuals directly involved in manipulating our currency’s pair or exchange rate with other currencies must be held personally liable. They must be charged with corruption. While fining the banks and other financial traders is important, the fines are low, mostly 10 per cent of their annual turnover, and must be increased. Moreover, alone the fines are not enough to deter the manipulation of our currency given the astronomical profits that the implicated banks and financial traders control. The SACP therefore calls for new legislative measures to clamp down on the manipulation of our currency.
The Reserve Bank must consider amending foreign exchange trading licenses for guilty parties to allow the entities only provision of basic foreign exchange facilities to clients but prohibiting them for a defined period from trading for own account. Further, South Africa should consider returning to the abandoned macroeconomic research group’s proposal for a crawling peg. This would mean adopting a band of rates within which the rand exchange rate can be allowed to fluctuate, co-ordinated by currency purchasing or selling to keep it within range. Crawling pegs can help control currency moves, usually during threats of depreciation.
Let us recall, in April 2015, the Competition Commission initiated a rand manipulation complaint, which it updated in August 2016, in total including 28 foreign controlled multinational and domestic commercial banks. The Competition Commission found that the banks manipulated the dollar–rand currency pair by fixing bids, offers, bid-offer spreads, the spot exchange rate, and the exchange rate at the Financial Information eXchange called the FIX. The banks divided markets by allocating customers, in which one trader withheld or pulled their existing bid or offer from the market to allow the other trader to execute and complete their trade. This foreign exchange cartel lasted for six years from 2007 to 2013. Following a 2020 Competition Appeal Court ruling, the Competition Commission expanded the complaint to include three other banks, bring the total number of implicated banks to 31 foreign controlled multinational and domestic commercial banks.
It is possible that there was further rand manipulation outside the six years. This must be investigated as well.
Halting the erosion of our national industrial base, defend workers’ livelihoods.
The SACP is deeply concerned by and denounces this week’s announcement by ArcelorMittal. The Luxembourg-based multinational corporation said it intends to close its New Castle long-steel manufacturing plant and the Vereeniging plant, where workers produce steel used in sectors such as construction, mining and more. If it closes the plants, ArcelorMittal will also destroy domestic productive capacity for high-grade speciality steel used in advanced industries such as automotive manufacturing.
ArcelorMittal’s intention to close the plants will have a wider impact downstream, where it will force some enterprises to close, and others to turn to steel importation. Still, those who will turn to steel importation will experience logistics related lead time delays and costs. This will have a negative impact as well.
The entire scenario drives de-industrialisation and could culminate in additional retrenchments, beyond the 3,500 workers estimated in media reportage. ArcelorMittal’s intention is a stark reminder of the human cost associated with profit-driven neoliberal state and corporate restructuring.
The Central Committee called for urgent, decisive state intervention to stop the closure of the New Castle long-steel plant and the Vereeniging plant. As a matter of principle, before any enterprise can contemplate a decision of such a magnitude that ArcelorMittal’s intention bears, there must be direct engagements for state intervention. There must be meaningful consultation with trade unions representing workers. Other stakeholders likely to be affected both downstream and in the surrounding area must also be consulted meaningfully.
Continuity of production at the New Castle long-steel plant and the Vereeniging plant must not hinge on the ownership of the two factories by ArcelorMittal. Therefore, state intervention should include possible transfer of ownership or direct takeover from ArcelorMittal to ensure the continuity of production, as opposed to allowing ArcelorMittal to close the two factories.
Further, state intervention must include immediate measures to address the under-capacity crisis and disruptions affecting rail, port, and electricity generation operations. This crisis impacts the wider economy and employment creation.
Also, there must be decisive action against theft, looting and vandalism of public network infrastructure materials and components. The criminality amounts to economic sabotage and must be treated and punished as such.
Wider working-class unity to roll back neoliberalism, going to the root of the ArcelorMittal’s scenario.
What was once a state-owned Iscor since 1928 is now ArcelorMittal. This has resulted from Iscor’s privatisation in 1989 by the apartheid regime after adopting neoliberalism in the 1970s. Along with the subsequent foreign acquisitions and mergers, Iscor’s privatisation marked the beginning of the distressing journey that forced our nation’s industrial capacity to succumb to foreign control and private profit-driven monopoly closures.
Likewise, the full takeover of the Saldanha Steel Mill in 2002, developed through a joint venture with a public entity, the Industrial Development Corporation, paved the way for ArcelorMittal to determine the future of our domestic steel manufacturing industrial landscape with far-reaching implications. The developing situation reflects the failure of both privatisation and other neoliberal policies adopted during and after apartheid.
The global context in which neoliberal forces pushed privatisation affecting state-owned enterprises, such as Iscor, was and still is characterised by capitalist competition for dominance and monopoly. This is a characteristic feature of imperialism. Foreign controlled multinational corporations such as ArcelorMittal have multiple manufacturing factories in different global regions. Others have overcapacity. As a result, they tend to neglect investment into parts of the productive capacity that they capture from privatisation, mergers and acquisitions.
The repercussions for affected countries have been dire. In our national situation, they include the anti-developmental import parity pricing and a trend towards domestic steel manufacturing substitution with imports. This contributes to de-industrialisation and domestic employment destruction.
It is important to note that privatisation did not go alone but was part of an array of neoliberal policies that coalesced to generate the unpleasant situation. Austerity, also called fiscal consolidation, curtailed capital expenditure in SOEs, ultimately discrediting it as a “bailout”. As part of the neoliberal policy regime, the affected SOEs were corporatised and outsourcing, including at Transnet and Eskom, served as another entry point to hollow them out. This, along with the other neoliberal policies, unleased a destruction of their productive capacity, just as state capture did.
The policy reforms to deepen and widen the opening-up of state-controlled infrastructure networks in order to convert them into new fields of private capital accumulation by competing profit-driven interests are also part of the destructive neoliberal policy regime. In this, neoliberalism has reframed privatisation, which now includes insinuating private profit-driven interests in targeted state-owned infrastructure networks, such as electricity generation, rail, ports, and water.
The Central Committee reaffirmed the SACP’s programme to forge a popular left front and build a powerful, socialist movement of the workers and poor as a strategic response to build wider working-class unity, strengthen and intensify the struggle for a policy change, towards a better South Africa.
Solidarity with workers against retrenchments by Sibanye-Stillwater
Central Committee vehemently condemned the insidious actions of the exploitative Sibanye-Stillwater, led by the rapacious CEO Neal Froneman. We salute the trade unions at Sibanye-Stillwater for their valiant efforts in thwarting the company’s reprehensible attempts to retrench 1,057 workers. The workers were ultimately redeployed to its gold operations.
However, our battle is far from over.
It is an outrage that while the toiling masses are forced into the scorching depths of the earth for a pittance, Froneman shamelessly pockets astronomical pay packages. These included R189 million in 2022 and a staggering R300 million in 2021. This egregious act of corporate greed is an affront to the hardworking workers.
The SACP urges trade unions at Sibanye-Stillwater to unite against the impending retrenchment of 575 workers, which the exorbitantly paid Froneman hypocritically calls a cost-cutting measure. Under his stewardship, Sibanye-Stillwater’s retrenchment process has coerced 550 workers at Kloof 4 shaft in Gauteng to opt for voluntary severance packages and 348 workers across its gold operations to opt for voluntary early retirement packages.
Hold capitalist mine bosses accountable for worker casualties and injuries.
It is with heavy hearts and profound sorrow that we extend our deepest condolences to the families and comrades of the mineworkers who lost their lives in the tragic incident at the Impala Platinum Mine on Monday, 27 November. 12 workers died and 74 workers now bear the physical and emotional scars of a disaster that could have been prevented. This is yet another grim chapter in the ongoing saga of corporate negligence and exploitation in the mines. Since the beginning of this year alone, we have mourned the loss of at least 55 mineworkers, each death an avoidable consequence of a system that values profit above human life.
The Central Committee denounced the profit-driven negligence. To support the trade unions, the workers who sustained injuries, and the families who lost their loved ones, the SACP is calling for a thorough investigation to hold the capitalist bosses both at Impala Platinum and other mines across the country accountable. Prosecution must form part of the measures to ensure accountability and deter negligence.
To the trade unions at Impala Platinum and in the mining sector at large, and to the working-class broadly, the SACP Central Committee says:
“Let us mourn but let us unite to intensify the struggle for fundamental change, reaffirming our unwavering commitment to workers’ rights and safety, and beyond that to the ultimate goals of social emancipation and a society without the exploitation of labour by capital”.
National Health Insurance
The SACP unequivocally denounces the profit-driven private healthcare sector manoeuvres to obstruct the adoption of the National Health Insurance Bill. Their aim is to dilute the NHI Bill so that, by the time of its implementation, it will not even be a shadow of what it should have been. Now the National Council of Provinces’ sitting that was scheduled to adopt the NHI Bill this week was postponed to December the 6th.
We reject the notion by profit-seeking interests that consultation on the NHI Bill was insufficient. After over 15 years, since the NHI discourse first entered the national agenda, there is no time for delay, but a need to move forward promptly. The extensive public consultation that has taken place over the years has showed overwhelming popular support for the NHI. We emphasise the urgency of passing the Bill and fully implementing the NHI.
The finalisation of this crucial legislation on December the 6th should represent a significant milestone. Only if it does so will the NHI Bill help dismantle inequality in healthcare and the neglect of too many workers and poor people’s health needs.
The NHI Bill must align with the principles of equality. It must establish a National Health Insurance Fund, guaranteeing free comprehensive healthcare coverage for all citizens. Private medical aid schemes will only cover additional services beyond what the NHI Fund covers.
NHI funding should be rooted in the principle of social solidarity, with a commitment to redistribute more from the surplus that the wealthy appropriate from our economy. Emphasis on the development of primary healthcare, a move aimed at unifying the health system, should remain a pivotal aspect under the NHI.
We firmly reject manoeuvres that seek to reinforce the dominance of medical aid schemes and perpetuate a profit-driven healthcare system. Today, there are too many people who have a medical aid cover – but which becomes useless as the finance interests who design medical aid scheme benefits curtail those benefits to be exhausted mostly around mid-year. This is because medical aid schemes have been financialised, with medical aid financial administration companies raking in profits from workers’ contributions. This must stop.
Reconfiguration of the Alliance and the 2024 elections
The Central Committee reaffirmed continued engagements with our allies on, and the SACP will buttress this with the struggle for a reconfigured Alliance at all levels as our strategy for the 2024 national and provincial elections. The reconfiguration must include active Alliance participation in the manifesto consultation and drafting processes, to ensure that the interests and aims of the working-class find profound expression.
The reconfiguration must ensure electoral lists that consider the requisite capacity to serve the people diligently. These lists must be inclusive to give active expression to the principle of collective leadership of our shared strategy as the Alliance – the national democratic revolution. Everyone on the lists must be subject to the collective accountability by the Alliance and the people, over and above their individual Alliance partner. What the representatives will say in legislative and executive organs of the state must also reflect the perspectives of the people at large and the Alliance as whole, as opposed to one partner.
We are forging a popular left front and building a powerful, socialist movement of the workers and poor at the same time. This is important to intensify immediate working-class struggles and will serve as an insurance of the working-class on all fronts, going forward.
The 16 Days of Activism for No Violence against Women and Children Campaign
The Central Committee directed all SACP structures and members to intensify the 16 Days of Activism for No Violence against Women and Children Campaign. This campaign must be sustained beyond the 16 days to become an everyday intensified struggle to end all forms of gender-based violence, eliminate patriarchy, and achieve a non-sexist society characterised by gender equality.
Solidarity and trade with Venezuela
Venezuela, home to the world’s largest known oil reserves, is under unilateral and extortionist sanctions imposed by the imperialist regime of the United States. Mostly supported by its Western European imperialist allies, the United States manipulates international oil prices through its unilateral sanctions, not only against Venezuela but other major oil producing countries. The unilateral sanctions also undermine the United Nations’ multilateral and legal frameworks and are among the major drivers of the global cost of living crisis. This crisis severely impacts oil and oil byproduct import-dependent countries like South Africa.
A delegation of the SACP visited Venezuela last month. Among others, our delegation engaged with Venezuelan authorities on oil supply for South Africa. The Venezuelan authorities agreed. They further indicated they have adopted an oil supply set aside for our country.
To bring down the costs of living in our country, considering oil and oil byproducts like petrol and diesel as critical inputs in industrial production, agriculture and transportation, the SACP calls on the government to source the cheaply available oil from Venezuela.
The SACP reiterates its solidarity with the people of Venezuela against imperialist machination and unilateral sanctions. We wish the communist and socialist parties of Venezuela fraternity and ever-growing strength and unity.
Solidarity and trade with Cuba
In October, the North Gauteng high court division of South Africa criticised a committee that endorsed a R50 million humanitarian aid for Cuba and set aside the aid. The court concluded that the committee did not form a quorum when it voted to pass the aid. It must be noted that the judgment does not take away South Africa’s rights to consider, adopt and offer Cuba, or any nation in need, humanitarian aid.
Against the imperialist economic blockade and unilateral sanctions imposed by the United States, as well as their effects, the SACP is calling on South Africa to adopt a more enhanced humanitarian aid package for Cuba as a matter of urgency.
In addition, we call on the government to hold accountable those who have been blocking Cuban developed medicine, which can stop preventable diabetes amputations in South Africa. Putting people first, the government must prioritise engaging with the Cuban government to secure the medicine to save lives in South Africa.
The government, like the SACP, must be deeply worried that South Africa is the top country in Africa of people living with diabetes. According to the International Diabetes Federation’s 10th edition published in 2021, South Africa had 4.2 million people aged 20 to 70 with diabetes. This number is growing. More worrying is that, according to medical literature based on South Africa’s surgical records, there are many preventable diabetes related amputations in our country. Those affected include a significant number of the workers and poor who either have no income or earn less than R70,000 per annum.
Middle East
The Central Committee reaffirmed its support for the just struggle of the Palestinian people for democratic national sovereignty and strongly denounced the genocide against the Palestinians by the apartheid Israeli settler regime. Since 7 October, the apartheid Israeli settler regime has killed over 15,000 Palestinian people. Israeli leaders must be held accountable for the genocide.
The Central Committee also reaffirmed its support for the intensification of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaign against Israel. The SACP will push this campaign forward. Among others, we will engage with trade unions to mobilise workers to refuse to handle imports from and exports to Israel.
Issued by Alex Mohubetswane Mashilo, National Spokesperson, SACP, 3 December 2023
