SACP Eastern Cape PEC Statement
28 July 2008
The SACP convened a special Provincial Executive Committee meeting on the 27th July 2008 to analyse developments in the province since the SACP made a call for the removal of the Premier Nosimo Balindlela, her cabinet and the Nelson Mandela Metro Mayor Nondumiso Mapazi. As the SACP, we welcome the removal of the Premier as really an outcome of our campaign for change in view of the service delivery challenges facing the province.
As much as we respect the ANC decision to appoint Mbulelo Sogoni as Premier we are of the consider view that his appointment is not the solution to the challenges facing the province. As we said when we met at the alliance meeting last week, we do not agree with this decision. Sogoni has been part of the team that has failed our people as they suffer because of poor service delivery. His appointment represents the same medicine in another bottle.
It is at this point that we call upon the ANC leadership to ensure that the process of constituting a new cabinet and changes in the legislature and administration must be an inclusive process driven by the alliance. As the SACP, we are convinced that at the centre of this change should be a consultative process that put together a rescue package of intervention measures in critical service delivery areas.
The PEC also noted the leaked Pillay Commission report as part of the ANC factionalist battles of the 1996 class project that has been defeated at the ANC Polokwane conference. If the reports in the media are true, we found the report to be flawed, as affected people were never given the opportunity to state their side in front of the Commission. We call for the immediate release of the report, the School Nutrition Forensic Report and Community Service Delivery Survey.
On the upcoming court appearance of ANC President Jacob Zuma, the PEC called for the dropping of all charges against Jacob Zuma as all the shenanigans surrounding his prosecution have proved it a political case. It is against this background, that as the SACP we call upon all our people to mobilize in support of the scraping of this trial. A fair trial cannot be possible given the crisis facing the constitutional court as the highest court in the land and all other actions of the National Prosecuting Authority like the Browse Mole Report that have violated President Zumas rights as a citizen.
The SACP wishes to salute the workers of our province who have brought about a total shutdown in the province during the COSATU strike. It is our considered view that the strikes throughout the country are essentially a reflection of a failed neo-liberal accumulation regime that we have warned about it in the last 7 years. The crisis of poverty and a jobless economic growth facing our country is the direct consequence of our self-imposed structural adjustment program as represented by the 1996 GEAR policy.
On Zimbabwe, the PEC welcomed the signing of the memorandum of understanding signed by the three parties and the talks that are underway to resolve the crisis facing that country. It very unfortunate that it has taken lot of lives and brought unbearable pain to the majority of workers and the poor in that country to reach this point. We also wish to call upon the parties to ensure that at the centre of the talks should be the fact that the people of Zimbabwe did express their wishes in the general elections held in March 2008. We further call upon all our people to provide their support to the people of Zimbabwe and other foreign nationals in our country.
Xolile Nqatha
Provincial Secretary
South African Communist Party
Eastern Cape Province
073 034 7923
xolile@dtcc.org.za
