16 November 2003
The Central Committee of the SACP met in Johannesburg over the weekend of 14-16th November. The CC was augmented by the presence of secretaries from 42 SACP districts countrywide. The main items on the agenda were an assessment of SACP activities over the past year and preparations for the SACP's 2004 programme, with a special focus on the forthcoming elections.
In reviewing the year, we noted considerable advances in the Financial Sector Campaign, launched by the SACP in October 2000, and joined by over 50 other organisations. Following the Financial Sector Summit in August last year, government has published draft regulations to govern credit bureaus; cabinet is engaged in developing a new Co-operatives' Bill and Community Reinvestment legislation; the Reserve Bank and government have begun to look at access to credit for the poor; several private banks have introduced positive changes; AVBOB has announced that it will now remove any discrimination against people with HIV/AIDS in its funeral insurance policies following mass pressure; and the Financial Sector Agreement was incorporated into the GDS agreement.
Much still needs to be done to ensure that workers and poor people have effective access to savings and credit facilities, and to ensure that they are not the victims of unscrupulous practices or sheer marginalisation. The lesson that the SACP draws from the progress noted above is that ongoing popular pressure and mobilisation is required to consolidate advances. The SACP through the Financial Sector Campaign structures will also seek to engage actively with the Financial Charter Council, a structure established to annually assess the social investment and transformation targets set for banks by the Financial Charter. As part of our 2004 programme of action we will be taking forward work in this area.
The CC session on elections was joined by ANC Secretary General, cde Kgalema Motlanthe, ANC national elections coordinator, cde Manne Dipico; and senior ANC NEC member, cde Joel Netshitenzhe. The ANC comrades briefed the CC on evolving ANC perspectives in regard to the development of the election manifesto and campaigning strategies. The SACP will be throwing in its full organisational weight to ensure an overwhelming ANC elections victory next year. Apart from buttressing the ANC's own campaigning efforts, the SACP is developing party specific programmes, primarily focusing on the most marginalised sectors of the working class in all provinces to ensure an ANC victory.
The CC endorses the broad thrust of government's ten year review process, and acknowledges with pride the very significant advances made in deepening democracy, unifying our country, and in major resource transfers to the poorest of the poor. We strongly concur that where most progress has been made over the past decade is in areas in which the public sector has a direct role. The CC also welcomes the frank acknowledgement by our ANC-led government that, notwithstanding significant progress, the current levels of poverty and marginalisation are not sustainable. There are many significant challenges, notably unemployment, poverty, HIV and AIDS - all of which are linked to the systemic duality of our economy and society. The SACP also welcomes government's Medium Term Budget Policy Statement, which envisages major infrastructural spending, and a significant focus on extended public works programmes, learnerships, internships and other measures to address the unemployment crisis. In its engagement with the senior ANC delegation, the CC emphasised the SACP's view that in addition to public works programmes and other job-creating initiatives, we need to focus on sustainable livelihoods, households and communities. Realistically, in a capitalist-dominated economy we will not succeed in approaching anything near full employment in any immediately foreseeable future. Hence the imperative of complementing the focus on job creation, with a focus on sustainable livelihoods. This includes a much greater drive to implement significant land reform that benefits hundreds of thousands of small family farmers, linked to a vibrant cooperative movement; food gardens in urban and rural communities; a more effective and comprehensive social security net that must be implemented not as a dole but as a catalyser for development; fostering local economies; more coherent housing and spatial planning to ensure sustainable communities; and micro-finance. The SACP is of the view that less emphasis should be placed on harnessing economic activities and entrepreneurs into what is, in effect, a profit-maximising, labour-exploiting, job-shedding formal economy, with more emphasis on assisting households and communities, through their own initiatives, to foster sustainable livelihoods and buttress themselves from the depredations of what are often cruel market forces.
Not entirely unconnected to all of the above, the CC expressed its concern at the last-minute amendments made to the Communal Land Rights Bill, currently before parliament. These amendments envisage transferring effective land ownership and administration over communal land to Traditional Councils that will be dominated by traditional leaders. Rather than marking a bold step forward in helping to promote household sustainability for millions of rural poor, the envisaged amendment will, in practice, perpetuate their subject status, with particularly negative implications for poor rural women. We call on government to withdraw the Bill in its present form.
The CC also received a report on the planned 16 Days of Activism against Violence against Women, starting on 25th November. The SACP strongly supports the campaign and we call on all members to join.
The CC also received a report on the SACP's ongoing engagement with a range of Zimbabwean formations. The SACP supports the broad thrust of ANC and government in regard to the crisis in Zimbabwe. It is Zimbabweans themselves who must find their own solutions; our government's interventions need to be conducted largely within a multi-lateral context; and we support ANC-led endeavours to foster dialogue between the two main political protagonists, ZANU-PF and the MDC. The SACP has had ongoing high-level contact with ZANU-PF, MDC, the ZCTU and other forces. The present political impasse is having a particularly grave impact on millions of poor and working people in Zimbabwe. While attention in some quarters in regard to human rights abuses is focused on more privileged strata, repression and the economic melt-down is having a particularly dire impact on the poor. The SACP strongly supports negotiations that will lead to an unblocking of the current impasse, however, we must guard against narrow elite pacting and rather promote a process that involves the broad mass base and which lays the basis for an agreement that begins to address the socio-economic crisis as well.
CONTACT
Mazibuko Kanyiso Jara (surname Jara)
Department of Media, Information and Publicity
South African Communist Party
Tel - 011 339 3621, Fax - 011 339 4244,Cell - 083 651 0271
Email - mazibuko@sacp.org.za