SACP+New+Year+Message



=SACP New Year Message=

The SACP takes this opportunity to wish all South Africans a happy festive season and a happy 2007. We would especially wish the workers of our country a peaceful rest and a prosperous new year, and they deserve this rest as it is their sweat that keeps the wheels of our economy turning.

As we look back into 2006 we note progress on a number of fronts, as well as persisting challenges, especially relating to jobs, poverty and HIV/AIDS.

Some important advances and struggles in 2006
One of the highlights of 2006 was the holding of the second local government elections since the adoption of our constitution in 1996. This marks an important moment in the consolidation and deepening of our democracy since the 1994 democratic breakthrough.

In 1996 we also celebrated a number of important anniversaries in the history of our struggle, including the centenary of the Bambatha Rebellion, the 10th anniversary of the adoption of our Constitution, the 30th anniversary of the 1976 student uprisings, the 50th anniversary of the heroic women’s march in 1956 and the 60th anniversary of the Great Mineworkers’ strike of 1946. In addition the body of our late General Secretary, Cde Moses Mabhida, was finally laid to rest in his home town of Pietermaritzburg. The SACP approached these anniversaries not just as once-off events but as an opportunity to reflect and reclaim the very important values of our national liberation struggles, the values of selfless dedication to the cause of the workers and the poor and social solidarity.

The SACP also wishes to salute the working class of our country for the numerous struggles they waged in defence of their rights, a living wage and decent working conditions. We particularly salute the sacrifice of workers in the security industry who embarked on what was perhaps the longest strike since the advent of our democracy, as well as other heroic workers’ struggles in many other sectors of our economy.

The SACP continued to notch important victories in its campaigns, including the signing into law the National Credit Act, including provisions for the legal regulation of the Credit Bureaux for the first time ever in our country. The Umzansi account, a product of the SACP-led financial sector campaign also reached 3 million accounts.

Defeat the capitalist loan sharks!
However, despite the advances made towards the regulation of the granting of credit, the SACP is seriously concerned about the rampant consumerism that is being fostered by especially the commercial sector in our country. We are concerned that many business concerns are now embarking on a frenzy of ‘willy nilly’ giving out credit cards and enticing unsuspecting consumers through millions of cell phone messages and letters offering what appears to be ‘cheap’ credit to our people. This is worsening indebtedness of our population thus creating a ticking time bomb and a false bubble of growth that is bound to burst in the near future, thus negatively affecting the workers and the poor.

In this regard the SACP also wishes to strongly criticize the Reserve Bank for responding to the above by increasing the interest rates, thus making the workers and the poor to pay a heavy price, whilst the modern loan sharks continue to make even more money from the indebtedness of our people. This is practically turning the festive season into a season of ‘credit infestors’. It is also clear to us that this credit frenzy is deliberately being embarked upon by the capitalist loan sharks ahead of the coming into effect of the National Credit Act.

We therefore call upon government and the Reserve Bank to focus their energies on comprehensive control mechanisms over the predatory behaviour of the credit grantors, and not punish the workers and the poor with forever rising interest rates.

The HIV/AIDS, job losses and safe public transport for all
The SACP also warmly welcomes the renewed determination by government in combating the HIV/AIDS scourge and the emerging consensus amongst all on the strategic and practical way forward in this regard. The HIV/AIDS scourge is one of the most serious threats to the consolidation of our democracy, and it specifically has a devastating impact on the youth and women. We should continue to wage the struggle against the HIV/AIDS pandemic also as a platform to take forward the struggle for gender equality in society, as the spread of this pandemic is also reinforced by partriarchy and oppression of women in society.

Whilst we welcome the fact that our economy has continued to grow, however the number of jobs that are created are far from our objective of at least halving unemployment by 2014, and the quality of the very minimal jobs created during 2006 leave a lot to be desired. They are mainly highly casualised and low paying jobs, a far cry from our demand for quality jobs and sustainable livelihoods.

We are unfortunately ending the year with another threat hanging over the heads of the working class, with the announcement of massive planned retrenchments at the South African Airways. The SACP wishes to reiterate its conviction that there is no place for such continued job loss bloodbath in a country with such high levels of unemployment. We therefore will support whatever action that SATAWU plans to take to defend workers’ jobs at SAA.

The SACP welcomes the marginal drop in road fatalities thus far during this festive season. However the number of road fatalities in our country is still too high for us to celebrate this drop. It was partly because of this that the SACP mobilized and launched its 2006 Red October Campaign focusing on the need to build a safe, affordable public transport system for our country. It is also for these reasons that we condemned the wasteful mega-transport project, Gautrain, which is hopelessly incapable of addressing the problems of public transport in our country. Instead this project will not only be a riders’ toy for elite few, but, in the process of its construction, it will also enrich a minority, whilst thousands of our people continue to die on the roads as a result of unsafe and unreliable public transport.

It is for this reason that the SACP is calling for a comprehensive and integrated public transport system for our country. In particular we call for the re-capitalisation and expansion of our rail system, so that this becomes the major means of public transport and transporation of goods inside our country.

The SACP ended the year on a high note, especially with the holding of the highly successful YCL 2nd National Congress at eThekwini. We take this opportunity to congratulate the new leadership of the YCL, and look forward to intensified communist youth action in 2007.

Some of the key challenges in 2007
As we approach 2007 there are two important lessons we must learn from major developments in 2006 and from the many struggles waged by the workers and the poor of our country. These are that capitalism is no solution to the problems facing the workers and the poor of our country, and that only intensified anti-capitalist working class struggles will transform the current economic growth path to create jobs, eradicate poverty and take us closer to our objective of building a socialist South Africa.

//Intensify mass struggles during the Policy Year//
A key challenge for 2007 is that of intensifying working class struggles to transform the current growth path, so that we do indeed make the second decade of our democracy a decade for the workers of the poor. The current growth path continues to benefit only a small minority whilst unemployment remains at more than 40%, with deepening poverty in society.

The SACP November 2006 Augmented Central Committee correctly declared the year 2007 as, amongst other things, the Policy Year. This is because some of our formations in the Tripartite Alliance will be holding key Congresses and Conferences. The ANC will be holding its National Policy Conference during the first half of 2007. This is an important platform for the working class to seek to influence so that a new basis for a different accumulation path can be laid. In addition the ANC will be holding its National Conference at the end of 2007. These are important events for the country as a whole, and it is important for the working class to prepare itself to fully participate in these events.

The SACP will also be holding its 12th Congress in July 2007. We will also use this event as an important contribution towards the consolidation and deepening of a working class led, and socialist oriented national democratic revolution.

The SACP however remains convinced that policies are not just made through boardrooms, but must be mass driven. Therefore, through our 2007 Programme of Action, we will intensify working class action on many fronts through taking forward our mass campaigns. We will continue to mobilize for the transformation of the financial sector to serve the workers and the poor, especially to take forward our demand for a once-off credit amnesty from the Credit Bureaux. We will also take forward our land campaign, and the struggle to build co-operatives and a progressive co-operative movement.

The SACP also calls upon our people to join us in their millions as we take forward our campaign for the building of a safe, affordable public transport for all.

//A new crusade against parasitic capitalism and corruption//
One of the major challenges for 2007 will be to intensify our struggle against //parasitic capitalism// in all its manifestations. Parasitic capitalism is a ‘system’ where access to public office becomes an instrument or a stepping stone into business ventures or to access government tenders. The SACP is extremely concerned about the increasing numbers of public representatives who are also involved in business. In order to defend our democracy and the values that have always informed our liberation struggle it is important to make sure that these two activities are separated.

Of even more serious concern is that parasitic capitalism is the basis for corruption. Apart from HIV/AIDS, joblessness and poverty, the single biggest threat facing our democracy is growing corruption in both the public and private sectors. This is blight to all those honest and hardworking South African citizens whose name is brought into disrepute by the corrupt elements. We call upon all our people to join this crusade against parasitic capitalism and corruption as these steal important resources meant to benefit the workers and the poor. Let our people stand up and expose corruption and parasitic capitalism wherever these rear their ugly heads!

Another scourge that we need to tackle with earnest seriousness is the problem of patronage in public service. The SACP wishes to reiterate its stance that occupation of public office is done in order to serve the people, and not to create patronage networks of loyalty and service to whomever the patron maybe.

Let us make 2007 the year for intensified mass mobilization to ensure that our democracy is not hijacked or stolen by the rich and better off in society, but that it is a democracy with, for and by the people.

A Happy 2007!
General Secretary South African Communist Party
 * Dr Blade Nzimande**

26 December 2006


 * For further information please contact:**


 * Malesela Maleka**
 * SACP Spokesperson**
 * Tel: 011 339 3621**
 * Fax: 011 339 4244**
 * Cell: 082 226 1802**
 * Email: Malesela@sacp.org.za**

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