The South African Communist Party is deeply disturbed and outraged at the fact that some of the shareholders and personal beneficiaries from the Gautrain Project are ministers of government. This indeed constitutes a very grave conflict of interests.
It is Cabinet that has taken the decision to support and fund Gautrain despite numerous protestations by our Party and many of our other progressive formations about this mega-project, whose services will practically only be accessed by the rich. We are outraged that not only will the Gautrain services only be accessed by the better off, but will now also personally benefit some of the already very well remunerated government ministers. This is simply not what the millions of our people fought and died for.
Of even more serious concern to us is the fact that some of the government ministers are both decision-makers and beneficiaries in this wasteful Gautrain project.
The SACP wishes to strongly condemn this as the worst expression of what we have consistently warned against, parasitic capitalism. Parasitic capitalism is the use of one's public position to access resources for personal benefit at the direct expense of the overwhelming majority of the workers and the poor of our country.
This necessarily poses the question as to what extent is continuation with this project despite very legitimate concerns raised by ourselves, including by Portfolio Committee on Transport in Parliament, has more to do with the interests of those who are going to benefit than with the necessity and rationality of the project?
Nothing short of a credible investigation and explanation from Cabinet will satisfy the millions of our people that occupation of government positions are not being used for private personal benefit.
We demand that the 'age of hope' - daily promised to millions of our starving people- must primarily be the age of hope for the 40% unemployed and the more than 50% of South Africans living in poverty. Otherwise this is the age of hope for the capitalist and middle classes, and nothing more than rhetoric and the modern South African 'opium of the people'.
The SACP remains firmly committed to the goals of our Alliance to fight poverty and unemployment and the most principled implementation of programmes to achieve these objectives. Our alliance and government must be judged by the most unscrupulous implementation of such programmes and consistently fight against all forms of parasitic capitalism.
Issued by: SACP