At the end of the SACP's Special Congress (being held in Durban, 08-10 April), the ANC-SACP-COSATU Alliance will hold a mass rally to launch the Know Your Neighbourhood: Basic Services for All Campaign. The rally will take place as follows:
Date– Sunday, 10 April
Time– 11h00 to 14h00
Venue– Glebelands Hostel Hall, Umlazi, opposite Reunion Station
Speakers - Blade Nzimande (SACP General Secretary), Kgalema Motlhanthe (ANC Secretary General) and Zwelinzima Vavi (COSATU General Secretary)
We have decided to launch this campaign on a day that is very important to our Party, 10 April - the commemoration of the 12th anniversary of the assassination of our General Secretary, Comrade Chris Hani. This campaign is dedicated to his memory.
By launching this campaign, we call on the millions of residents of townships, informal settlements and rural areas, and human rights and community-based organisations to join us in this campaign demanding BASIC SERVICES FOR ALL! Together, let us demand:
Housing for the homeless
Free electricity for all
Free water and sanitation for all
Free education for all
Affordable health services for all
Social security for the elderly and poor children
This campaign is part of the Alliance programme of action for 2005 and is in line with the community surveys to be conduced every two years by Statistics South Africa as announced in the State of the Nation Address.
The campaign will be based on door-to-door visits to our communities, seeking to understand the problems facing each household, and acting together to try and address these challenges, not least access to basic and essential services for all. The recent spontaneous social and civic uprisings in various townships and informal settlements are an expression against unemployment and lack of access to basic services by poor communities.
We are ten years into democracy. But millions of our people remain without services, without food, without work. Since the democratic breakthrough of 1994, our ANC-led government has delivered water, electricity, social security grants and housing. But, many problems still exist. Many communities still face water and electricity cut-offs. Many people are still evicted from their homes. Many more people still do not get free basic amounts of water, electricity and sanitation. There are many practical problems experienced when trying to access social security. There are not sufficient budgets and resources to meet the provision of basic needs and services for all.
Among the practical problems are:
Party branches, working together with our allies, community based organisations, will mobilise communities through local campaigns and struggles based on the information and problems received, building local organs of popular working class power, engage municipalities and government departments, and undertake many other local interventions (including working with ANC branches, ward councillors, civics and existing local organisations). As communists, and acting together with our allies, we shall seek to understand our neighbourhoods, learning from the lived experience and struggles of our people and taking forward local struggles and demands for access to basic and essential services for all. This campaign will include a focus on evictions, cut-offs and problems our people face in accessing services. There is no better way to honour Cde Chris than to undertake, on an ongoing basis, intensive interaction with our people.
As Hani himself said “Socialism is not about big concepts and heavy theory. Socialism is about decent shelter for those who are homeless. It is about water for those who have no safe drinking water. It is about health care, it is about a life of dignity for the old. It is about overcoming the huge divide between urban and rural areas. It is about a decent education for all our people. Socialism is about rolling back the tyranny of the market. As long as the economy is dominated by an unelected, privileged few, the case for socialism will exist." Hani stood for basic services for all!
Contact
Mazibuko Kanyiso Jara (surname Jara)
Head of the Office of the General Secretary
South African Communist Party
Tel - 011 339 3621,
Fax - 011 339 4244/6880,
Cell - 083 651 0271
Email - mazibuko@sacp.org.za (office), mazibuko@mail.ngo.za (alternate)
Website - www.sacp.org.za