SACP Eastern Cape PEC press statement
4 July 2010
The South African Communist Party in the Province of the Eastern Cape held its 6th plenary session of the 5th Provincial Congress Provincial Executive Committee on the 3rd 4th of July 2010 which ended on a high note with deeper clarity on what needs to be done going forward.
The session was convened to discuss critical challenges of our province and the revolution as a whole and to chart a course of what needs to be done. The plenary session also undertook an assessment of the state of the organisation and work being done to build a strong campaigning Party in the province. The leadership also reflected on the transition process of Buffalo City Municipality to being a Metropolitan Municipality and preparations for our bilateral with COSATU and the Alliance Summit on the 8th and 9th of July 2010.
The PEC agreed that the coming alliance summit represented an opportunity for the alliance which we dare not squander as we leave in a province characterised by a deepening financial crisis in key service delivery department like education and health. A crisis that is compounded by high levels of corruption affecting both the provincial government and the local state. In line with our anti corruption campaign, the PEC greed to convened an anti corruption seminar, a provincial March against corruption and establishment of an Integrity Committee as part of our contribution to the struggle for a better life for all as those who steal are robbing the workers and the poor.
In the above context the PEC agreed to highlight levels of corruption in the private sector as in many cases it is some of the business people in the private sector that are responsible for the corruption we find in the public sector as they provide kickbacks and front for some of the senior government officials. The PEC asserted that not all public sector workers are corrupt and there are many who are committed to serve and they should be acknowledged at all times.
On the creation of another metro in the province, the PEC expressed its principled opposition to the move as it will perpetuate the marginalization of the rural areas as experienced by thousands of people in Cacadu region after the establishment of the Nelson Mandela Metro. For the reason that the processes have moved in preparing BCM as a metro, the PEC called for deeper thinking on the kind of a metro we need, that is metro for who? (Metro for which class?). The PEC argued for the need to put measures to intervene in what will be remaining of Amathole District Municipality and the Eastern side of the province (former Transkei) that remains marginalised with high levels of poverty.
The PEC also noted with grave concern the recent road accidents, the death of babies in Mthatha Academic Hospital and more than 30 initiates who have died in the province and wish to convey our sincere message of condolences to all the families who lost their loved ones. These unfortunate incidents are a painful reminder of the urgency of the tight regulation and transformation of both our health and transport system as part of the need to provide safe, accessible, affordable, quality public transport and health services. In this context the PEC also noted the opposition to the NHI expressed by some commentators based on its "un-affordability". We wish to reject these views as we regard the NHI as a critical element of transforming the health system in favour of the public health system as the current resource allocation is biased towards the private health system.
The PEC expressed its concern on the increasing job losses which result in the marginalization of the poor in the province as result of increasing levels of unemployment with more than 3 factories closing between November 2009 and June 2010. The coming provincial alliance summit could not have come at a better time than now as to provide a plan to salvage the province from catastrophe that has threaten the lives of many families.
The PEC noted the emerging new tendency in the province that is determined to reverse advances made both in the Polokwana and River Park conferences of the ANC in building a campaign driven ANC that unifies both itself and the alliance. The PEC committed to expose and defeat this tendency with the same determination as we fought against the 1996 class project that sought to secure a narrow growth path for the benefit of the few.
As the SACP, we commit ourselves to work for the success of the Provincial Alliance Summit and key for the summit to succeed would be to contribute in lifting elements of a new economic growth path as it is this semi-colonial growth path that continue to reproduce the current inequalities. As part of a new growth path we wish to iterate our call as the SACP for the renationalization of SASOL and Iscor Metal Steel. We call upon our alliance partners and all our people join us in the above mentioned struggles. Our unity in action, working together with our people remains the only weapon capable of defeating the new tendency and realising the goal of better for all our people.
Xolile Nqatha
SACP Provincial Secretary
Eastern Cape Province
073 034 7923
