SACP Central Committee Press Statement

18th July 1999

The Central Committee of the SACP met in Johannesburg over the weekend of 17th – 18th July.

The agenda of the CC involved, in particular, an extensive discussion of the political report presented by the Party national secretariat. The report and discussion included:

• An assessment of the election campaign and the contribution made by the SACP to the overwhelming ANC victory.  The CC noted that, in the course of the campaign, the SACP had succeeded, with its alliance partners, in achieving all of the key strategic objectives we had set ourselves – an overwhelming ANC victory; a campaign based on a substantive election manifesto in which our shared RDP vision was re-affirmed; and the active participation of Communists in all electoral structures of the alliance, combined with an independent SACP electoral campaign effort and profile. The CC noted that the Party added value to the campaign, while we also succeeded in considerably strengthening our own organisation in the process.

Among the specific election campaign tasks the SACP spearheaded was the organisation of over 40 national rallies to commemorate cde Chris Hani’s assassination; and Red Thursday, on May 20th, in which Party activists reached over 400,000 workers in lunch-hour meetings, factory gate discussions, and work-place pamphlet distribution.

While the SACP is not in the business of head-counting, and while all elected representatives fall directly under an ANC discipline, the CC nonetheless noted with pride the fact that there are now 7 ministers and one deputy minister in the national cabinet, who are SACP members.  Many dozens more communists were elected to the national and provincial legislatures, and some are now serving as MECs, speakers, and so forth.  We are proud that large numbers of communists enjoy the trust and respect of broad ANC structures.

The Job Loss Crisis Some 500,000 workers have lost their jobs in the last 5 years.  In the past weeks, all the signs are that this massive job loss process is set to continue, unless very urgent action is undertaken.  While job losses in gold-mining and the parastatals have been in the head-lines, there is hardly a sector of our economy that is not affected or threatened by this crisis – including coal mining, chemicals (notably the glass sector which has been devastated), construction and even in the service sector, where we had hoped to see important job creation as a result of growth in tourism.

The CC noted that the job loss crisis has multiple causes, essentially related to negative global developments and the legacy of an economy which, prior to 1994, had been in a deep-seated, structural impasse. Most of the underlying causes of  unemployment are not the fault of the ANC-alliance, but doing something about the crisis is certainly our responsibility.

The CC devoted focused attention to gold-mining and Transnet. While the SACP believes that government was slow to move, back in April, around the proposed IMF gold-sales, we welcome last week’s much firmer cabinet position on these sales.  We also welcome the IMF’s decision not to sell gold on the open market.  We believe that this is an indication that active campaigning can, indeed, have some impact.  The CC condemned the ill-considered Bank of England gold sales, and expressed its support for current initiatives to lobby European central banks – indeed, some CC members are actively involved in this process, in their various other capacities.

The CC also noted that government had subsidised the ERPM mine to the extent that the real owner of this mine should, surely, now be considered to be the state.  Along with the National Union of Mineworkers we are not persuaded that this mine is no longer viable.  We welcome moves, at government initiative, to find a new management for the mine. Government strategic supervision of future operations must be maintained.

The CC also believes that strategic responses to the gold price falls should not focus only on the sacrifices that workers or government should make – by way of job losses or subsidies.  We also need to look at re-regulation that will ensure that the mining houses are not able to cherry-pick, but will, instead, be compelled to balance operations across ore rich and ore poor operations.

Above all, we must respond to the current gold crisis not just with short-term, crisis management.  The Gold Crisis Committee, and other structures, must develop long-term plans for the industry.

Parastatals and the case of Transnet The CC expressed the belief that, generally, over the past 5 years, we have squandered the potential developmental resources of key parastatals.  Rather than seeing parastatals as, by definition, “cumbersome and bloated” white elephants that we should seek to privatise as rapidly as possible, we need to understand that key public utilities are absolutely critical to our developmental vision.

This applies very forcefully to Transnet and its key subsidiaries.  In the past week we have been informed that Spoornet, after making a profit in the previous financial year, had suffered a serious loss this year.  The impression created is that this loss was the result of poor service and the “inevitable non-competitiveness” of public sector utilities. This is very far from the truth, the Spoornet losses are the result of several factors:

• Privately-operated road transport companies do not carry the direct costs for the maintenance of our roads.  Road maintenance is paid out of public resources, principally derived from the fuel levy.  This is a levy that the general public (and indeed Spoornet itself, which uses diesel on its rail operations) has to pay.  Spoornet, and the general public, are subsidising private sector road transporters, while Spoornet has to carry the costs of its rail maintenance.
•  In addition to the above, the payload limits for road transport are extremely generous, and internationally higher than in most countries, including countries in our own region.  There is also little attention paid to enforcement of limits on our roads
• Spoornet is also encumbered by an onerous pension fund, the legacy of the old white sheltered employment dispensation that prevailed.

The CC called for the development of an active and strategic perspective for Spoornet and Transnet more generally.  We also called for greater attention to be given to the regulation of road transport, to ensure greater coherence and equity. The CC expressed its firm support for worker mobilisation and campaigns against unilateral restructuring and retrenchments.

The CC called on all SACP provincial structures to engage with COSATU to ensure our effective participation.

Public Sector Wage Negotiations Members of the CC include senior members of government and of the public sector trade unions, who currently find themselves in the midst of a difficult negotiations process.  The CC agreed that it would be invidious for the SACP to seek to adopt a fixed position on the wage issue itself – the unions and government must negotiate.

However, once more this year’s negotiations have underlined the imperative of moving to a more effective process.  Key to this will be the development of a mutually agreed public sector wage policy.  The CC committed the SACP to work, together with its alliance partners, to help to facilitate such an outcome.

The CC also received reports on and discussed

• Organisational work within the Party
• Preparations for a major SACP Strategy Conference on the 3rd to the 5th of September

• Preparations for the Alliance Summit to be held on the 6-7 August.

Issued by the SACP Department of Information & Publicity
E-Mail: sacp1@wn.apc.org
South African Communist Party Head Office
COSATU House
No. 1 Leyds Street - 7th Floor
Braamfontein 2001
Republic of South Africa
(Tel: 27 11 339-3621/2)
(Fax: 27 11 339-4244)