“Walk the talk to achieve all the aims of the Freedom Charter”
Friday, 7 February 2025: - On Thursday night, 6 February 2025, President Cyril Ramaphosa delivered the State of the Nation Address (SONA) with a firm, progressive international stance – defending our hard-won independence, democratic sovereignty and fundamental right to self-determination. This was crucial in the face of malicious utterances by the United States President, the conservative right-wing Doland Trump, whose words, tainted by the remnants of racism and apartheid sympathies, exposed his allegiance to reactionary forces such as AfriForum in South Africa. We reiterate our condemnation of Trump in the strongest possible terms.
In his unwavering internationalist stance, President Ramaphosa reaffirmed our solidarity with oppressed peoples fighting occupation and imperialist aggression. Central to this was our unbreakable support for the people of Palestine, who endure genocide at the hands of the apartheid Israeli settler regime. The SACP strongly condemns the Israeli regime for its occupation of Palestinian land, genocide and other human rights violations. We equally denounce Trump’s reckless call for Israel to hand over the Gaza Strip to the United States. The entire historical land of Palestine belongs to the Palestinian people and deserves peace and freedom – full stop.
Walk the talk to achieve all the aims of the Freedom Charter
The President delivered the SONA in the year of the 70th anniversary of the Freedom Charter. The Freedom Charter is a historic revolutionary milestone that remains a guiding vision for the working class.
In this 70th year since the adoption of the Freedom Charter, which is also the 31st year since our April 1994 transition from the colonial and apartheid oppressive past and its legacy into our democratic dispensation, we must ask whether the SONA gives expression to the direction outlined in the Freedom Charter. In particular, we need a strong focus on the economy in asking this question given its influence on broader social transformation and development. This programmatic question moves beyond the recognition that this year marks the 70th anniversary of the Freedom Charter.
Under the economic clause headed “The people shall share in the country’s wealth!”, the Freedom Charter has two key provisions we would like to draw attention to for the purpose of the question. The first one states, “The national wealth of our country, the heritage of South Africans, shall be restored to the people”, while the second provision states, “The mineral wealth beneath the soil, the banks and monopoly industry shall be transferred to the ownership of the people as a whole”. The SONA lacks content to account for where South Africa is in achieving these two clauses 30 years into our democratic dispensation within the context of the 70 years of the adoption of the Freedom Charter.
In fact, the neo-liberal reforms agenda within the crux of the SONA, for example, affecting network infrastructure such as electricity generation and transmission, rail network and associated transport operations, the ports and water infrastructure, is diametrically opposed to the Freedom Charter’s clause, “...monopoly industry shall be transferred to the ownership of the people as a whole”. In the banking sector, there has virtually still not been progress to achieve the Freedom Charter’s clause, “the banks... shall be transferred to the ownership of the people as a whole”. The government has become increasingly reluctant to take the lead in driving financial sector transformation.
Also, the over-reliance on blended finance is a direct contradiction of the principles of public ownership. Global evidence, including the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs’ 2025 analysis, has demonstrated that such schemes primarily serve to enrich private capital while failing to mobilise genuine developmental finance.
The R20 billion ownership transformation fund per annum for the next five years aimed at supporting broad-based black economic empowerment must promote collective forms of ownership such as worker ownership development, including co-operatives, ensuring economic transformation is led by and for the working class, rather than an emerging comprador bourgeoisie or elites.
That said, the fund is insufficient without a fundamental transformation of the financial sector. This sector remains a burden on our economy, hindering shared growth and development.
Permanent public employment
Once again, the SACP calls on the government to halt ArcelorMittal’s planned closure of the steel works in Newcastle and Vereeniging, as well as the rail fabrication plant in eMalahleni. Preventing these closures is not just about stopping retrenchments – it is a strategic necessity for national industrialisation. This urgent task cannot be delayed until a new industrialisation policy is formulated. Action must be taken now. The options that the government has include renationalisation if ArcelorMittal remains intransigent.
The expansion of public employment programmes is a necessary step, but treating such initiatives as temporary interventions only reinforces unemployment and precariousness. The Presidential Employment Stimulus and the Social Employment Fund must be transformed into permanent, decent work employment within key sectors such as health, education and climate-resilient infrastructure development and maintenance. Public employment must be expanded as a core feature of economic planning, ensuring that the state leads in employment creation towards ensuring the Freedom Charter’s right of all to work in reality rather than leaving employment at the mercy of capitalist market forces.
National Health Insurance: No neo-liberal dilution!
The SACP calls for a comprehensive implementation of the National Health Insurance (NHI) towards quality healthcare for all, particularly the establishment of the NHI Fund. We reject any neo-liberal compromises that seek to preserve the profit-drove private healthcare’s dominance. The NHI must be fully implemented as a publicly funded universal healthcare system, with no space for private profiteering. The control of healthcare resources must be socialised, ensuring access is based on need rather than the ability to pay.
Towards a comprehensive social security system
The recognition of the Social Relief of Distress Grant as a stepping stone toward a universal basic income grant is crucial. Urgent action is needed. The universal basic income grant policy must be finalised before the end of 2025. It must be designed to guarantee a minimum standard of living for all, rather than as a tokenistic measure. Social protection must not be used as a pacification tool but as part of a broader strategy to de-commodify basic needs and empower the working class. It must be part of the wider effort to advance towards a comprehensive social security system.
Energy security
The SACP rejects the privatisation of ESKOM’s assets and electricity generation and transmission. This neo-liberal agenda favours the neo-liberal shift to the profit-driven independent power producers, away from the role of the state as the mainstay in electricity generation. To support this shift, contradicting the Freedom Charter through conditionalities imposed through the National Treasury, ESKOM is prohibited to invest in new power generation capacity. The working class must unite and resist this neo-liberal agenda at all costs.
Energy is a public good that must serve society, not private profit. The $13 billion “Just Energy Transition” pledge must directly benefit workers and communities, not multinational corporations and financial speculators. The SACP calls for the expansion of state investment in energy generation and transmission, rejecting any attempts to commodify essential services. This new investment must include a consideration to create a new electricity generation and transmission public utility to complement ESKOM and thus take forward the provisions of the Freedom Charter.
Fighting corruption: Expose the capitalist parasites
Corruption is an inherent feature of capitalism. The looting of public resources, whether by comprador elements or multinational monopolies, must be eradicated through decisive state action. The investigative authorities against corruption must be strengthened and must operate without fear or favour. The Whistleblower Protection Bill must be prioritised to protect those who expose corruption. State capture is not just about individuals – it is about a system of private accumulation of wealth that must be dismantled through the expansion of worker and state control over key economic sectors.
Crisis-high rates of unemployment, poverty, inequality and crime
The direction of government policy, particularly the neo-liberal agenda, has trapped our country especially the working class into an economic trajectory marked by a crisis of high unemployment rates, with over 12 million active and discouraged job seekers unemployed, as well as crisis-high rates poverty and inequality. As it stands, the SONA as a programme does not take us any closer to achieving the vision of the Freedom Charter or the aims of its basic programme, the National Democratic Revolution.
The Freedom Charter is a revolutionary document and should not be used to justify measures that go against it, such as neo-liberal agendas.
The SACP also stresses the importance of more effective measures to combat crime, including adequate funding for law enforcement authorities and the implementation of economic and broader social transformation policies that are truly anchored in the strategic objectives of the Freedom Charter. Crime in South Africa is a source of sleepless nights for many households, communities, and the economy.
Local government
The systemic collapse of local government and the failure to deliver basic services to communities is deeply concerning. While the President referred to challenges faced by municipalities, especially in rural areas, such as attracting skilled professionals in fields like engineering, town planning and municipal finance management, he did not address the major issue of austerity.
Austerity, with its budget cuts, undermines municipal capacity. It contradicts the strategic transformation objective of building a capable, democratic, developmental state with its own service delivery and productive capacity. Municipalities are further affected by the crisis-high rates of unemployment, poverty and inequality, which result in many residents being unable to pay for municipal services. This, in turn, the crisis-high rates of unemployment, poverty and inequality negatively impact municipal revenue generation capacity.
It is not only municipalities in rural areas that face challenges. Even the metropolitan municipalities face serious challenges as a result of austerity.
In addition, corruption and complacency in municipalities are major problems. This has been evident in municipalities like the Tshwane Metro, under a DA-led coalition, where services to townships deteriorated and, in some cases, became virtually non-existent. Why this rot has happened still needs to be addressed.
Issued by the South African Communist Party,
Founded in 1921 as the Communist Party of South Africa.
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