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South African Communist Party Press Statement, 24 August 2014
13th Congress Central Committee, 9th Plenary Session
Advance and deepen our Second, more Radical Phase of Democratic Transition
The SACP Central Committee met in Kliptown, Soweto over the weekend 22 - 24
August 2014. The CC discussed and contributed to a secretariat political
report focused on the important ANC December 2012 Mangaung National
Conference resolution calling for a radical second phase of our democratic
transition. The CC also discussed and took resolutions on several
contemporary issues - including the serious challenges in the financial
sector, the threat of proto-fascist hooliganism to our hard-won democratic
advances, and the situation in Gaza. The CC also used the opportunity to
hold community meetings for several hours in Kliptown and nearby Eldorado
Park on Saturday morning.
Giving context and content to the call for a second radical phase of our
democratic transition
The CC noted that the ANC's 2012 National Conference, the Alliance's 2013
national summit, and President Zuma's 2014 inauguration speech all placed
the imperative of a second radical phase of our democratic transition centre
stage. Since the 1994 democratic breakthrough a major redistributive
programme has been under way, impacting significantly on the working class
and poor. This massive redistributive effort has included 3 million
subsidised houses, the extension of social grants to over 16 million South
Africans, one the largest roll-outs of subsidised solar water heaters in the
world, reaching over 400,000 poor households, and much more. Yet, despite
this impressive and in many respects internationally unparalleled effort,
there is the stubborn persistence of crisis levels of poverty, inequality
and unemployment.
This reproduced crisis is rooted primarily in the untransformed character of
our productive economy:
- high levels of private monopoly concentration,
- the domination of an increasingly financialised mineral-energy-banking
complex that reproduces a weak manufacturing and SMME sector, and
- SA's subordinate location in the global imperialist value chain as a
producer of un-beneficiated mineral resources.
The CC resolved that, in the coming weeks, the SACP will release a fuller
discussion document that seeks to provide substantive context and content to
the imperative of a second radical phase, and a programme of action to
achieve it. The objective will be to stimulate discussion across our
Alliance and in the wider public. The paper will seek to expose those who
refuse to accept there is a systemic crisis in our economy, and who favour
business as usual. In defending the imperative of radicalism, the paper will
distinguish a genuine radicalism from those who seek to reduce radicalism to
hooliganism, or to a more aggressive promotion of private accumulation by a
small elite of aspirant black capitalists.
The demise of African Bank and subsequent events in the past two weeks have
dramatically illustrated precisely one of the core systemic choke-points
within our economy.
A financial sector that continues to bleed SA dry
The SACP has never regarded the views of ratings agencies as anything other
than self-interested advice to speculators. Moody's downgrading of all SA's
banks in the aftermath of the demise of African Bank had little to do with
its disapproval of speculative activity preying upon the poor, and
everything to do with its disappointment that the Reserve Bank's partial
bail out and restructuring of African Bank was not loaded entirely onto the
South African tax-payer, with major investors in the Bank being forced to
take a 10% "haircut".
Nevertheless, whatever Moody's reasoning, the fact is that the downgrade had
its origins in the reckless promotion of unaffordable lending to working
people and the poor. The CC noted that the involvement in one way or another
of so-called reputable banks (and retailers) in these practices, has now
emerged as a major threat to the reputation and credit-worthiness of the
country. Those commentators who have grown accustomed to blaming the
struggles of the working class for negative credit ratings must surely now
be obliged to acknowledge the role of speculative profit-seeking by
financial institutions.
The problem runs deeper than just the conventional financial institutions.
The symbiotic relationship between African Bank and Ellerines underlines the
degree to which wide swathes of our economy have become financialised.
Increasingly, major retailers in basic consumer lines like furniture,
clothing and food are gouging their profits not so much from what they sell
as from punitive interest on credit advanced.
The SACP calls on all regulatory authorities, including the Reserve Bank and
the National Credit Regulator, to root out "business models" predicated on
promoting indebtedness among workers and the poor.
Beware of false rumours being spread about retirement funds
The SACP calls upon workers and public servants not to resign on the basis
of unfounded rumours that government is planning to take away people's
hard-earned pensions and prevent them from accessing their funds. In some
cases these rumours are being deliberately fanned by anti-Alliance elements
in the union movement for their own narrow political ends. We are aware of
teachers and health-care workers who are resigning from their jobs in order
to access their money in the mistaken belief that they may be denied access
to their funds in the future.
Those fanning these rumours are acting in the most irresponsible way. Not
only are the rumours wrong, they expose those panicked into resigning to
serious losses. For instance, if you resign in order to withdraw your
retirement funds only R25 000 of those savings are tax free. Whereas on
retirement R500,000 is tax free.
The rumour-mongers are deliberately confusing retirement reforms under way
directed at provident funds. There are currently no measures in place to
force workers on resigning from their jobs to preserve their retirement
savings. What will take effect from March next year is that only when they
retire will members of a provident fund be obliged to use two-thirds of what
they have saved after March 2015 to purchase an annuity (a monthly pension).
However whatever has been saved up till March 2015 will still be available
as a lump sum on retirement.
In the case of public servants, their pensions are regulated in terms of the
Government Employee Pension Fund rules. The GEPF will not change at this
stage. Government is obliged to consult workers before any proposals or
reforms can be put into law. Proposals by government aimed at lowering
charges on pension funds, encouraging workers to keep their savings until
retirement, and convert some of their retirement savings into income at
retirement are some of the proposals for consultation with all workers.
The SACP calls upon Treasury and the Department of Public Service and
Administration to disseminate information to all workers, assuring them that
the law has not changed and that workers have access to their hard-earned
pension funds.
Defend our democratic institutions from hooliganism
The Communist Party way back in the 1920s was the pioneering political
formation in calling for a democratic, non-racial, one-person one-vote
parliament in our country. Communists have suffered persecution and even
death in the struggle for this important objective. Parliament is a critical
institution within our new democracy. It is place in which the people's
representatives develop and pass legislation and hold the executive publicly
to account. In our multi-party democracy we should welcome robust debate and
all parties whether a majority party or a minority party should be
respected. Even the smallest party in Parliament has the honour of and
obligation to represent the hundreds of thousands of South Africans who
voted for it.
While major strides have been made since 1994 in the transformation of
Parliament and other legislatures in our country, the SACP agrees with those
who believe that Parliament must continue to move away from what is
sometimes a limiting decorum inherited from an earlier colonial era.
We believe that all political parties, whatever the differences among them,
currently represented in Parliament share these general views and values -
with one exception. The leadership of the EFF is in Parliament in order to
discredit and smash it. As the German playwright Bertolt Brecht observed of
the 1930s, while the emergent National Socialist Nazi party engaged in
provocative hooliganism in the Reichstag, one of the hall-marks of fascism
is its inclination to turn politics into theatre. In its formative years, it
is the politics of pseudo-military hooliganism. In power, IF they come to
power, the theatre turns into Nuremburg-style, mass military displays of
leader worship and nationalistic chauvinism. We cannot allow this trajectory
to take hold within our institutions. We call on all South Africans,
including those members of the EFF parliamentary caucus who are themselves
increasingly alarmed by the bus they have boarded, to isolate this dangerous
cancer within our body politic.
The leader of the EFF, whose case with SARS is back in court tomorrow, is
acting with all of the reckless disdain of someone with nothing to lose. His
behaviour, not just in Parliament in Cape Town last week, but in the Gauteng
legislature, continues along the same trajectory of anarchic plunder and
wrecking of anything in his way that characterised his conduct in Limpopo
and as leader of the ANC Youth League, leaving a trail of destruction in his
wake. Long before Malema's belated expulsion from the ANC, the SACP
characterised this tendency as "embryonic fascism". We stand by this
characterisation. Some commentators today, like German liberals in the
1930s, dismiss this characterisation. We are told that for fascism to breed
it needs to be suckled by sectors of capital. But this is exactly the case
here - Malema has long been supported by wealthy funders, principally but
not only the most decadent factions of capital. We welcome reports that SARS
is investigating the source of payments for Malema's tax debt. It is SARS on
behalf of the people of South Africa that needs to be saying to Malema and
his dodgy backers: "Pay back the money".
Parliament is not the only corner-stone of our democracy under threat. The
Party is deeply concerned at the ongoing turmoil in the NPA. Likewise, while
respecting the office of the Public Protector, the Party is concerned at the
constant over-reaching by Advocate Thuli Madonsela that wittingly or
unwittingly plays into an anti-democratic regime-change agenda that seeks to
portray the entirety of government as corrupt. At the same time as members
of the ANC-led movement we must acknowledge that corruption and
maladministration within government and within our movement does exist -
always with the active complicity of private sector elements. We must deal
decisively with corruption and unethical behaviour in order to defeat the
threat to our democracy.
Apartheid Zionist Israel is guilty of war crimes and genocide
The horrific mass death and destruction in occupied Gaza continues. The SACP
reaffirms its condemnation of the multiple war crimes and genocide
perpetrated by apartheid Zionist Israel. The Party salutes the growing
numbers of South Africans, including a growing number of South African Jews
who have actively come out to express horror and condemnation. This has
included one of the largest marches in South Africa's history involving
hundreds of thousands in Cape Town. The SACP and Young Communist League of
SA have been active participants along with a wide range of formations in
these activities.
The Central Committee expressed its full support for the Boycott Divestment
& Sanctions (BDS) Movement's campaign for a boycott of G4S Security company.
This is the company that runs Israel's illegal detention facilities, torture
centres and prisons. G4S has a strong presence in SA, including at ACSA
airports. We say: boycott G4S. The CC also calls on our authorities to deal
decisively with South African citizens who are illegally serving in the
Israeli army.
Swaziland autocracy continues
The CC condemned the arrest of the President of Pudemo who has now been
charged, for the third time, with sedition. The charge carries a potential
death sentence and it is particularly concerning that Swaziland recently
advertised for the position of an official state hangman. The SACP is also
concerned about recent moves by our own Department of Home Affairs to expel
Swazi political refugees living in SA. We have taken up this matter with the
department and we insist that these comrades must not be returned to
Swaziland to face certain detention, torture and possible murder.
Ebola
The CC received a brief report on government's response to the Ebola
outbreak in West Africa. The CC commended the rapid precautionary measures
put into place by government. The Party also noted the opportunism of DA
Gauteng leader Jack Bloom in spreading rumours about a non-existent Ebola
case in SA. What is required is calm heads, vigilance, and a common and
united South African response - not party political opportunism.
Issued by the SACP Central Committee, Kliptown, Soweto
Enquiries
Alex Mashilo: Spokesperson
Mobile: 082 9200 308
Office: 011 339 3621/2
Email: <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected] and
<mailto:[email protected]> [email protected]
Twitter: @2SACP
Website: <http://www.sacp.org.za> www.sacp.org.za
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