Monday, 20 February 2006
The SACP Central Committee (CC) met in Johannesburg this weekend of 17-18 February 2006. The meeting was shorter than usual to allow CC members to return to their various local government election campaign
deployments.
The SACP is campaigning for an overwhelming ANC election victory on March 1. The CC received reports on the progress being made in our ANC-led campaign. The municipal sphere has tended to be relegated simply to a delivery function. In our campaigning the SACP is highlighting the key developmental role of local government, not least the scope that it offers for ongoing popular participation in ward committees, Integrated
Development Plans (IDPs), and in the proposed growth and development summits in all metros and districts.
In our election campaigning, SACP activists are also highlighting to communities our collective responsibility for ensuring that ANC councillors uphold the solemn commitment they have undertaken to serve their communities without any motive of personal gain; to convene at least four report-back meetings a year, and to remain in the communities that have elected them.
The CC also discussed some of the challenges that are confronting the Alliance in the current election campaign, including fall-outs from the drawing up of ANC candidate lists and from the re-demarcation of some cross boundary municipalities. The CC believes that there are some cases of legitimate concern where democratic or consultative procedures have been extremely inadequate. The SACP has been raising these matters with its Alliance partners and with our colleagues in government. However, whatever the problems, the CC has made it very clear that we are not supporting any independent candidates. We also do not sanction whatsoever any attempt to create no-go areas, or any other interference with the election process.
The CC discussed two inputs on government?s Accelerated Shared Growth for South Africa (ASGISA). We welcomed this important initiative with its commitment to fostering a new growth path, one that is shared with
the overall objective of halving unemployment and poverty by 2014. The CC agreed that the SACP and its Alliance partners will need to be vigilant to ensure that private capital and narrow BEE initiatives do
not hijack ASGISA, turning it into an accelerated growth for themselves whilst the shared objective is relegated to a trickle-down. There is a danger that ASGISA will be largely reduced into a basket of large construction projects that at best accelerate growth in the short-term and create some temporary construction jobs, but without fundamentally addressing the underdevelopment crisis and the current growth trajectory. Logistics infrastructure must equally address the logistics needs of the poor. Skills development must include the skills required for building village co-ops or sustainable family farms.
The CC also noted that the sections of ASGISA dealing with the so-called ?second? economy still require considerable work. Likewise the centrality of agrarian reform does not receive adequate attention.
Notwithstanding these and other concerns, the CC welcomed the introduction of this important initiative. It is one more confirmation of the deepening convergence of the Alliance around some key aspects of economic policy.
The CC welcomed Minister of Finance, Cde Trevor Manuel?s announcement this past week to consider the imposition of a windfall tax on South African produced synthetic fuels. The pump price of our locally produced
fuel is the same as imported fuel, notwithstanding the fact that the production costs of the local product are now considerably less.
Cde Manuel?s announcement has been met with howls from certain sections of business. SASOL CEO, Pat Davies, said that it would cause the company ?to rethink its local investment plans?. SASOL later denied that this was a threat, but the message was clear. The SASOL CEO has in fact done us all a favour. He has reminded us how dangerous it is to leave such a key strategic asset in the hands of a profit-maximising capitalist sector totally lacking in any empathy for the major economic and developmental challenges of our society.
SASOL was established as a public entity by the apartheid government in 1950. In the late 1970s, with UN-imposed sanctions against South Africa, vast amounts of public money were spent on the construction of SASOL 2 and SASOL 3. On the eve of the 19994 democratic breakthrough, SASOL was hurriedly privatised.
Currently some 35% of our fuel is now synthetic, the bulk of it coming from SASOL. This is a very important achievement, with major strategic implications for our sovereign national capacity with global oil reserves running dry.
In the light of all of the above, the SACP calls on government to *re-nationalise* SASOL. Government currently has a 20% share through the PIC and the IDC. Clearly this share is insufficient leverage if recent statements by SASOL and its record on employee safety and Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) are anything to go by.
The CC also calls for a review of all of the hasty privatisation exercises, including that of ISCOR that occurred in the waning years of apartheid.
The CC also discussed the current rape charge trial involving ANC Deputy President Jacob Zuma. The CC reaffirmed its principled position that both Cde Zuma and the complainant must be afforded support and their
dignity must be respected at all times.
Charges of this nature place both parties in an extremely vulnerable situation. It is in the interests of both parties, and, indeed of our liberation movement and our country, that a dignified process is allowed to proceed and that justice is done.
We must not allow the reckless abuse of the rights of either Cde Zuma or the complainant. This abuse has emanated, not least, from sections of the media. We call on all South Africans to ensure that our democracy
and its institutions emerge strengthened from this difficult period.
Contact:
Malesela Maleka
SACP Spokesperson
Tel: 011 339 3621
Fax: 011 339 4244
Mobile: 082 226 1802
E-mail: malesela@sacp.org.za