SACP+CC+19+and+20+May+2006+Press+Statement



=South African Communist Party Central Committee=

Press Statement
The Central Committee of the SACP met on the 19th and 20th May in Johannesburg. The CC noted with satisfaction that SACP membership has been growing significantly over the last period, standing now at over 40,000. This represents a 100% growth since our July 2002 11th National Congress.

The CC discussed the COSATU-led general strike of the 18th May and noted the extremely significant turn-out in many centres and the high level of political discipline. The strike was called to highlight the plight of the working class and poor in our country. While there has been sustained economic growth for over a decade, while prices for many of our primary commodity exports are soaring on global markets, and while the bosses have been reaping unprecedented profits – millions of workers are barely experiencing any benefits, if at all, from this post-apartheid dividend. The wage gap has widened, and the share of GDP accruing to capital has been increasing while that to workers has diminished. Township and rural village communities, particularly women in these communities, bear the brunt of an inadequate response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. While domestic car sales have soared, it is workers and the poor who find themselves in the cross-fire of taxi wars, or stranded on stations by an under-capitalised and unreliable Metrorail system, or bundled into over-crowded and unsafe buses and minibuses.

The COSATU-led strike of this past Thursday is a powerful statement. Workers will not stand passively by while the rich become richer and workers remain stranded, as if they were second class citizens, in another world of poverty and underdevelopment.

The CC received an extensive report on JIPSA (the Joint Initiative on Priority Skills Acquisition), a project undertaken in the broader context of the Accelerated Shared Growth Initiative (ASGISA). We welcomed the JIPSA initiative, which seeks to correct, not just the skills imbalance left from the apartheid era, but also the devastating impact in the recent past of austerity policies that have grossly neglected training and professional morale in key public sector professions like teaching and nursing. The skills development responsibilities of our parastatals have also been neglected in the erstwhile enthusiasm for right-sizing and privatisation. In the past, these parastatals trained tens of thousands of (white) artisans every year. Today the average age of artisans in South Africa is 54. In engaging with the main JIPSA proposals, the CC called for greater emphasis on the development of skills to sustain effective land agrarian reform and cooperative programmes.

The CC discussed the current SATAWU strike in the security sector. We called on the parties, especially the intransigent employers, to move immediately to good faith negotiations. The Department of Labour should also urgently consider a more interventionist stand. The CC condemns all acts of violence and vandalism that have occurred in the course of this strike, including the assassination of the leading Western Cape SATAWU organisers in the sector. The SACP is not inclined to dismiss lightly the claim that at least some of the violence may well be the work of agents provocateurs deliberately planted into marches to discredit the strike and crush worker organisation. We are mindful that a significant number of former apartheid security personnel and dirty tricks operatives have set up businesses in this sector. These are the very people who were responsible for the random killings on trains in the early 1990s. We call on government to act decisively in dealing with the perpetrators of violence and vandalism. We also call on government to launch a comprehensive inquiry into the whole private security industry – including its extensive use of vulnerable non-South African workers, and its illegal involvement in supplying security personnel to para-military operations throughout our region and into international hot-spots like Iraq.

The CC discussed reports on the current situation in Khutsong and the broader Merafong district. The CC commended the role of party provincial and district structures in seeking to provide consistent and constructive leadership to the people of this community in a very difficult situation. The situation was provoked by an extremely clumsy government-led process in which the community was given every reason to believe that its wishes in regard to remaining in Gauteng had been taken seriously and even accepted - only to be told, at the eleventh hour, just before local government elections, that the recommendation of the Demarcation Board had not been accepted. That government has the legal powers to over-ride the Demarcation Board’s recommendations is a fact, but there has still not been a convincing reason from national government as to why such a reversal was made. A document from the Party district structures in Khutsong was tabled in the CC, arguing that in terms of hospital services, location of work, shopping and other amenities, the great majority of Merafong’s residents are inextricably linked to Gauteng. While it is true that Merafong residents will not now be shut out from Gauteng work and amenities, surely the political demarcation of districts should be based on the actual socio-economic and spatial realities of communities, and not on abstract and technocratic decisions that appear to be remote from the actual circumstances on the ground, and that are also dismissive of popular wishes. We will continue to engage our allies in this regard, and we call on government to keep an open mind on the matter.

The CC also received an extensive international report that focused in particular on two key areas:

The major left shift in a wide range of Latin American countries, evident in electoral results and in anti- neoliberal government policies over the past period; and SACP work in Southern Africa, including Swaziland solidarity work and important engagements with political and social forces in Zambia.

The CC approved a programme of action that will take forward our engagements with our counterparts in Latin America, and that will pursue our Southern African work.

Following press reports earlier in the week, CC member cde Ronnie Kasrils asked for time to speak to the meeting about his role in the recent trial of cde Jacob Zuma. The CC accepted without reservation cde Kasrils’ explanation and agreed there were no grounds whatsoever for implying that he was involved in a conspiracy against cde Zuma. The CC called on all SACP, Young Communist League and alliance members to act in a comradely and disciplined manner that respects the integrity of our organisations.

21 May 2006


 * Issued By:**
 * Dr Blade Nzimande**
 * SACP General Secretary**


 * For information contact:**


 * Malesela Maleka**
 * SACP Spokesperson**
 * 0822261802**

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