9 August 2020
The political organ of the South African Communist Party (SACP) in the Western Cape, the Provincial Working Committee (PWC), convened a virtual meeting on 8 August 2020 in the context of deeply troubling developments as a consequence of gross neglect of working-class communities which predates the devastating health pandemic, the novel coronavirus (Covid-19).
The main purpose of the PWC was to conduct a deeper analysis of the prevailing socio-economic realities, the health crisis and illegal land occupations which is clearly a symptom of gross neglect and under-development of communities under the racist DA government. Further, the PWC received and reflected on a comprehensive report on the fact finding mission conducted by public sector union, the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu), concerning the response and readiness of the health system to deal with Covid-19 in all its manifestations.
The PWC also paid tribute to all those workers who succumbed in the period under review, including Izithwalandwe comrades Andrew Mlangeni and John Nkadimeng, Popcru Provincial Secretary comrade Mncedisi Mbolekwa, our volunteer administrator Papadi Kose and our Brian Bunting District Secretary comrade Siyabulela Siswana. The SACP is concerned that the heartless assassins of our district secretary have not been arrested and therefore calls on the police investigation unit to accelerate its investigation.
Salute the historic women’s march and 99 fighting years of the SACP
The PWC sat on the eve of the 64 th anniversary of the historic women’s march which epitomised the valiant fighting spirit of formidable women against the brutal and inhumane system of colonial apartheid. The escalation of the abominable brutal acts of femicide constitute a regression of the advances achieved through sacrifices by gallant heroines of the 1956 revolutionary march. The spirit of our forebears must propel the current generation to fight and ultimately defeat Gender Based Violence and femicide as a critical component of ending the crisis of social reproduction.
Our meeting also took place following the Party’s celebration of the 99 fighting years in a principled revolutionary struggle against the barbaric system of colonial apartheid and imperialism. In marking the 99 years of struggle, the guiding theme is thus “learning from the past, active in the present, building the future, building socialism now.” This theme invokes the fundamentals of Marxist-Leninist perspective of historical and dialectical materialism. It captures the historical roots and role of the Party, the current vanguard and leadership responsibility in a changing environment as well as appreciating the fundamental shifts required for advancement towards socialism.
The Covid-19 crisis and rampant corruption
The PWC commended Nehawu for a very comprehensive report about the state of health facilities and readiness to respond to the impact of Covid-19 which highlights severe capacity constraints, chronic shortages of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), non-compliance with health and safety standards as well as victimisation of workers. What is most striking about the report is the attitude of management within the health system of ostensibly hiding the devastating impact of the pandemic on frontline workers including forcing workers to sign non-disclosure forms to hide the rate of infections. Therefore, the SACP PWC resolved to pledge solidarity with Nehawu to fight any and all forms of victimisation of workers in general and frontline workers in particular. Thus, the SACP in the province shall support Nehawu national day of action on 3 September 2020. We also join Nehawu in applauding the instrumental role played by community healthcare workers who have become the backbone of the healthcare system during this pandemic.
As the SACP in the province, we are deeply worried about pervasive corruption related to public procurement of PPE, which is perpetrated by those immoral people who want to profit from a deadly disease. We support the establishment of the ministerial team to oversee the swift investigation of the probity of all PPE tenders including the Western Cape provincial government and municipalities without exception. The insatiable greed of those unscrupulous public officials with a penchant crass materialism by any means confirms the validity of the longstanding calls for thorough vetting and lifestyle audits of all public officials and ensure prosecution of all thieves without fear, favour or prejudice.
“Illegal land occupation” in the City of Cape Town
In the midst of a devastating health pandemic which has claimed several thousands of lives in the Western Cape, the province is confronted by other forms of extreme volatility that expose major underlying systemic fault lines embedded within the racist neoliberal framework under the DA government.
The DA government has deliberately and grossly neglected working-class communities over many years by failing to provide for massive roll-out of human settlements and broader infrastructural developments and services. The so-called illegal occupation, we say so-called because there is a fundamental difference between law and justice. The occupations may be illegal, but they are a response to depravation and therefore, become a matter of social justice. The racist DA government has been lying to people promising service delivery but in fact doing nothing to improve the conditions of the working class.
The DA government has made no progress in reducing the housing backlogs and upgrading squatter camps, in fact, the City of Cape Town in particular has continued to condemn people to squalid conditions in what they call temporary shelters which are a permanent feature in our communities. We have called for development of housing and end to infrastructure backlogs but to date the Western Cape government has dismally failed to act. We have consistently called for moratorium on sale of public land in order to prioritise development, but the DA has ignored such calls. It is against this background that the patience of the people has been exhausted in their desperate yearning for land as a way to address a painful historical grievance of dispossession.
The DA projects itself as a helpless victim of lawlessness but on the contrary we have observed the class and racial bias of the DA in responding to various constituencies within the Cape Metro. They are uncompromising about protecting land in the affluent areas of Hout Bay and Fish Hoek in order to safeguard developmental land and recreational spaces but stand idle and fuel infighting between elected leadership and residents in working-class communities. This class differentiation is an integral part of the DA ideology steeped in their racist character.
Further, their divide-and-rule tactic is nothing but a ploy to displace legitimate community leadership to weaken working-class unity.
It is regrettable that within this struggle, communities also wage a war against public infrastructure such as schools, halls and other facilities. As the SACP, we denounce in the strongest terms possible the destruction of the little public infrastructure that already exists such as schools, clinics, roads and public halls. The antidote to this tendency is to provide leadership and direct the anger to the enemy of the working class which is the DA in this context.
Pervasive entrenchment of lawlessness and criminality
There is a growing culture of crime in our communities in recent months which is gradually being entrenched. We first saw infrastructure related companies being violently forced to pay 30% to armed local criminal networks in order to operate. This is over and above the protection fee that spaza shop owners have to pay to local gangsters. Another manifestation of this criminality is the fact that government services such as emergency ambulance services and Eskom workers as well as contractors of stormwater and sanitation services are subjected to attacks including the burning of their vehicles in our communities.
The situation is so dire that these government services have now stopped or can only operate under security provided by these organised criminal syndicates. This form of extortionist tendency and lawlessness is being allowed to persist and is becoming systematically institutionalised and communities are now under the thumb of criminals.
SACP calls for the reinstatement of the 43 Steffanutti Stocks dismissed workers
The SACP in the Western Cape is concerned about the senseless dismissals of the 43 workers by Steffanutti Stocks, a large national company located in Cape Town, amid the crisis of the Covid-19 pandemic. The 43 workers affiliated to the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) were dismissed on 23 June 2020 after they withdrew their labour, following the employer’s failure to pay them Temporary Employee/
Employer Relief Scheme (TERS). Employers must not use the crisis of Covid-19 as their convenient excuse to lay-off and retrench workers. Against this background, the SACP in the Western Cape calls on the employer, the NUM and including the Building Industry Bargaining Council conciliation session to be held on 13 August 2020 as a platform to find an amicable solution which will ultimately lead to the reinstatement of the 43 workers.
Further, the SACP in the province calls on all other sectors of our economy in the province to be sensitive of the current socio-economic moment and desist from retrenching workers and cutting working hours and wages.
Issued by SACP Western Cape
Contact:
Benson Ngqentsu- Provincial Secretary
Mobile: 0827966400
