SACP Eastern Cape PWC Statement

20 January 2010

The SACP held a Special Provincial Working Committee (PWC) meeting today, the 19th of January 2010 to prepare for the provincial alliance meeting which was held the same day to develop a shared understanding on the developmental path of the province as we approach the ANC Lekgotla planned from January 31 - 02 February 2010.

The SACP at its own PWC expressed its sadness at the passing away of Ma Dideka Mhlaba whom we knew as a community development activist and a mother to all of us. We will indeed miss her motherly love and the warm she always received us when we visited their home with the late SACP veteran and first Eastern Cape Premier comrade Raymond Mhlaba.

Ma Dideka, as the number one First Lady in the province remained a pillar of strength and an inspiration to all of us and never allowed her elevation to upper positions in society to change who she was and detach her away from ordinary people.

As the SACP, we wish to convey our sincere condolences to the Mhlaba family and the broader movement as led by the African National Congress and committing to continue with the struggle to revive and defend the values of service to the people and solidarity as a bedrock that made our alliance stronger and the only force capable of uniting our people.

For this, we commit with our very souls, never to allow the reduction of our struggle to be about self-enrichment by the few but to continue to ensure that our struggle is about the total economic emancipation of the majority of workers and poor.

Long Live the spirit and values of Ma Mhlaba Long Live!

Xolile Nqatha
Provincial Secretary
South African Communist Party
Eastern Cape Province

073 034 7923
xolile@dtcc.org.za