20 February 2018
The South African Communist Party (SACP) in Skenjana Roji District (Buffalo City Metro) in the Eastern Cape convened its District Executive Committee (DEC) meeting on the 17 - 18 February 2018 at the NEHAWU Provincial Office in East London. The DEC meeting was convened for the DEC collective to consider to assess the state of our party looking at its strengths and weaknesses and to scientifically analyse the socio-economic conditions of the workers and the poor here across the globe.
The meeting was attended by the SACP Provincial Executive Committee (PEC) members, Comrade Lazola Ndamase - SACP 2nd Deputy Provincial Secretary, Comrade Anil Pillai - SACP PEC member and Comrade Andile Fani - SACP PEC member. Comrade Lazola Ndamase delivered the PEC input. The meeting also received a political presentation from Comrade Phila Nkayi, SACP veteran. We considered and adopted the political report, organisational report and financial report. All these reports and the inputs were instrumental to the meeting as they provided a political and ideological guide to meaningful discussions for they clearly articulated the state of our party and the concrete material conditions under which we are engaging in the concrete struggles.
National:
As the SACP, we note and welcome the long overdue recalling of President Jacob Zuma by the National Executive Committee of the ANC. The SACP has called for his resignation and failure which the ANC NEC must recall him. This call was made by our party after some glaring acts of recklessness from the part of the President, and that he has surrendered political power to his friends led by the toxic Gupta family. He has through action donated the sovereignty of our beloved country and plunged us into unbearable country. He has thrown all our strategic State Own Enterprises (SOEs) into crisis, Eskom, DENEL, SABC, SAA, PRASA, etc. At the helm of the rogue elements milking our strategic reserves has been the Guptas with the political protection of President Zuma and arrogant "premier league
In welcoming the resignation of President Zuma, as announced on 14 February 2018 after the ANC has resolved to support an amended vote of no confidence at the National Assembly on the following day. President Zuma's resignation must now become a bridge-head for pursuing further action. The momentum of self-correction from within the ANC and state must be sustained and accelerated. Never again must we allow an individual, whatever their struggle credentials, to stand above organisational discipline, collective leadership and the democratic rule of law.
We wish to join the scores of South Africans in congratulating Comrade Cyril Ramaphosa on his election as the President of the Republic of South Africa. The immediate task of the newly elected President remains that of radically reducing class, race and gender inequalities and uneven development between urban and rural areas. In particular, this requires increased attention to rural development and resolute policy measures to improve the quality of the life of the workers and the poor by giving effect to the right to work as enshrined in the Freedom Charter and expanding decent work for all.
Locally:
As the South African Communists, we are concerned about the state of the service delivery in the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality. The workers and the poor in the townships are subjected to squalor conditions in a filthy environment with uncollected waste, sewer running in the streets, collapsing roads and streets infrastructure, etc. whilst the life is totally different at other affluent areas like Gonubie, Beacon Bay, Nahoon, etc. It is our considered view that part of the contributing factors to these challenges is the deployment of ward councillors as the full-time councillors, infighting in the municipality and governing party. As the party we are calling for more concerted efforts in servicing the working class, and a working class oriented budget and the IDP process.
It is in this context that we are calling upon the Buffalo City Municipality to establish viable cooperatives to amongst other things clean in the townships. The establishment of cleaning cooperatives in the townships will help to cushion people against poverty and unemployment and for the residents to take greater responsibility of their environment.
We have observed the vandalising of unattended municipal buildings into the dilapidated state, including the Jan Smuts Stadium which is largely used by the children from the working calls communities. The offices in the Jan Smuts Stadium are vandalised, the stadium has no functioning water and ablution facilities. It is in this context that, we are calling for an audit of all municipal assets and for the report to be made available for public consumption. This will assist the municipality and the people of Buffalo City to safeguard their assets against vandalising and being auctioned at night by some corrupt elements.
We wish to reiterate our call again outsourcing municipal services and casualization of workers in the municipality. The municipality has the necessary capacity for waste removal but it is using the private trucks of those with close proximity to political leadership. We are of the firm view that the municipality must put an end to outsourcing and develop the state capacity to deliver services to the people.
Organisationally:
The meeting committed the party cadres in the district to build a strong organisation fortified with socialist ideology and revolutionary working class conscious membership; and strengthen the Young Communist League of South Africa (YCLSA) as a viable go to youth formation that is committed to a socialist future. To this end, the DEC adopted a programme of action which includes building a strong trade union movement, SACP branches in the institutions of Higher Learning as part of reaching out to academics. The party in the district will roll-out a massive political education programme across all our structures through the campaigns and programmes including joint work with progressive social forces.
We are committed to a reconfigured alliance that is built from below and unified in action to respond to socio-economic challenges of the people at the grass-root level. It is in this context that we remained dismayed by the state and dysfunctionality of our revolutionary alliance in our district. The African National Congress (ANC), the leader of our revolutionary alliance seems to disregard other alliance components on serious decision making and issues relating to deployment. There has been no meaningful consultation of alliance components and a thorough going alliance political engagements on many issues that require alliance decision making process. It is in this context that we are calling upon the provincial ANC led alliance to urgently convene an alliance summit in Buffalo City to ensure functionality and effectiveness of the alliance in the district.
Conclusion:
We declare this year as the year of building a popular left front to consolidate the people's power to advance the revolution.
We closed our meeting in high note committing ourselves to advance the SACP 14th National Congress Resolutions including actively contesting elections.
Issued by the SACP Skenjana Roji District.
Contact:
Ludwe Mnweba
SACP District Spokesperson
Mobile: +27732563521
Email: ludsmweba@gmail.com