SACP Northern Cape Provincial Council Declaration

18 February 2014

The 2nd Provincial Council of the 4th Congress PEC of the South African Communist Party in the Northern Cape Province took place from the 15th – 16th February 2013, in Kimberley. The Provincial Council was attended by more than one hundred and twenty (120) delegates drawn from both the PEC of the SACP and the Young Communist League of South Africa (YCLSA), as well as Districts and Branches of the Party and delegates from Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), African National Congress (ANC) and South African National Civic Organisation (SANCO).

The Provincial Council received comprehensive reports focusing on political and organizational work since the 4th Provincial Congress in relation to our Party programme the South African Road to Socialism. The council also received considered reports international, continental and local contexts and balance of forces, as well as elections work.

International and Continental Context

The Provincial Council deliberated on circumstances pertaining to developments affecting the working class and the poor internationally and locally, as driven by imperial forces and the Breton Woods institutions.

The rise in foreign, neo-liberal and imperialist interference in African states such as Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali and the greater Sudan area, North and South, cannot be left unattended as they are an interruption to independent developments, nationhood and sovereignty. The historical legacy of colonialism and the dominance of imperialism stunt socio-economic growth and create instability on the African Continent.

The SACP will strengthen and intensify its role in solidarity work with the working class, both in the continental and abroad with all fraternal countries, organisations, particularly the progressives of the world. This includes but not limited to activist participation in our Party led international solidarity campaigns: the struggle of our Palestinian people, the on-going campaign for the release of the Cuban 5 from US prisons and the strengthening of ties and cooperation with progressive Latin American states who are constantly being economically, politically and subversively bullied by the imperialist hegemon in North America.

Domestic Context

The Provincial Council elaborated on the Party`s approach towards the 2014 General Elections. Our main task at this moment remains to consolidate working class hegemony across racial lines in all communities. Together with our Alliance partners, the Party aims to work towards an overwhelming victory of the ANC in the May 7 General Elections to enable us to continue to defend, deepen and advance our second radical phase of transition.

We also resolved as thus:

Education

The Provincial Council welcomes the intervention of the Minister of Higher Education and Training, Comrade Blade Nzimande, in the on-going resolution of the challenges facing our post-school institutions. The council further applauded the firmness of the department to make education fashionable by affirming the importance of colleges in societal transformation and development and making them institutions of choice.The council also welcomed and congratulated the first intake to the Sol Plaatjie University as an epoch-making moment.

Health

The health system in the province continues to face structural challenges that limit our capacity to respond to the urgent needs of our people. The Party welcomed the health department`s efforts of dispatching 38 young people from the Province to undertake the studies in medicine in Cuba. We further wish to encourage the Province to increase its capacity and the recruitment of more young people to study nursing and other medical disciplines.

The council further urged all our structures to continue working with our democratic government towards the full implementation of the National Health Insurance. In particular we welcome the location of one of the pilot sites in De Aar – in our province.

The Workplace

SACP`s plan to build and strengthen working class hegemony through continued establishment of workplace and industrial units is another key campaign in our 2014 Programme of Action. The council expressed the need to develop a programme to conscientize workers so that we are able to pursue the objectives of the medium term vision (MTV). We will work together with COSATU in advancing this campaign.

The Economy

The principal task in this regard is to radically transform the current semi-colonial growth path of our economy in order to tackle the triple challenges of unemployment, inequality and poverty and also overcome the skills challenges. The working class has to play its vanguard role in this regard to alter the current path characterized by systemic and structural challenges. Although we have made some important policy breakthroughs and strides on this front, we need to intensify efforts to transform the economy to be responsive to the needs of the people, particularly the working class and the poor. In this regard our province needs to radically break away from “business as usual” and adopt a paradigm shift.

The State

The state is a critical site of struggle; the highest concentration of political power. We must resist the liberal idea that the state is inherently bad and evil. Government as an organ of the state is an important tool in the hands of our people to deepen and advance the radical second phase of our revolutionary project. We must further deepen our efforts for the continued transformation of the state to advance people-centred development and foster the building of a democratic developmental state that is responsive to the needs of the working class and the poor.

The Community

We will intensify the struggle to build people`s power in our communities, again combining people`s power in the local sphere with local state power. This is a very important sphere of organization and mobilization, in which we will deploy most trusted cadres to play a broader role. It is also important that we continuously mobilize in this front all the time, not only when it is election time. We will assume a leading role in community struggles around service delivery to properly locate those as part of our alliance giving leadership to society and closing rank against counter-revolutionaries and opportunists.

The Battle of Ideas

Ideological struggles are an integral component of the struggle of the working class against capitalism and to transform the immediate conditions of the workers and the poor. An important component of the battle of ideas is that of contesting the media space.

The dominant ideas in society are the ideas of those who control the means of production and in turn use this as a lever to reproduce their ideas. Our resolve is to robustly engage the staple diet continuously given by the commercial media. We commit to build alternative voices in the media as opposed to extensions of the liberal bourgeois media.

Elections

The SACP in the province will work towards the overwhelming victory of the ANC and leverage the campaign to build and strengthen Party structures.

The Party will also intensify its discussion forum on a weekly basis in an endeavour to educate communities about democracy and the need for people to exercise their vote in defending our democratic gains.

Alliance

The Party`s analysis of workerist syndicalist drifts within the organised labour movement will indeed be confronted with the rollout of key campaigns, linked with perennial political and ideological seminars. The party calls on all its structures to defend NUMSA from being swallowed by ultra-left vultures who wish to divide the working class.

The Party and COSATU will be marching to the Nama Khoi municipality to expose the rot of corruption and maladministration by the DA.

The Party aims to strengthen its relations with COSATU and its affiliates through joint programmes and campaigns and political education.

The Party will work with its allies especially COSATU to intensify our campaign of transforming the financial sector to amongst others protect the workers and the poor from unscrupulous financial institutions and mashonisas.

As part of further strengthening the full time capacity of the party as per the SACP 13th National Congress Constitutional amendment of having 2nd Deputy Provincial Secretaries, the Provincial Council also filled the position by unanimously electing Cde. Kabelo Mohibidu in the position.

The delegates of council declare that no effort will be spared to continue with our struggle to create a more humane and better people-centred world order.

Issued by SACP Northern Cape

Contact:

Foot Soldier Mogorosi - Spokesperson @ 073 0946027