Finance+a+basic+human+right,+SACP+Human+Rights+Day+statement

SACP Media Release, March 20, 2007
=Access to finance is a basic human right=

//SACP statement on the occasion of Human Rights Day Celebrations//
This year, our country marks the celebration of the Human Rights Day and the SACP would like to take this opportunity to send a message of good wish to our people.

As we celebrate this day, we remember our heroes and heroines, who have for many years struggled worldwide to assert the supremacy of human kind and their rights. We particularly pay homage to the Martyrs of the Sharpville Massacre who led a fearless resistance against the brutality of the apartheid regime.

In our struggle to build communism, the SACP has been driven by the values of treating human beings, their interest and rights as the supreme. All our actions need to be geared to assure that humanities interests’ is not superseded by the greed for profit.

We call on the people of our country to continuously come out in their numbers to participate in institutions of democracy, in civil society organisations and various community structures to make sure that we deepen the culture of Human Rights in our country as enshrined in the constitution of the country. It is in the interest of our own revolution that we do so for we have learned how the revolution can degenerate if our own people are not vigilant.

This we have witnessed in our neighbouring country in Zimbabwe in terms of how the culture of respect of Human Rights can degenerate, unless you have a vigilant mass based culture of the protection of the gains of the collapse of colonialism. As always the working class and the poor are the victims of the collapse of this culture and therefore it is imperative that they are at the forefront of the defence of Human Rights.

Equally, the current accumulation path has for years not known any respect for the values and the culture of human rights. Imperialism has prioritised profits over people. It is against this background that the SACP will over this month focus its celebration of the Human Rights Day on the issue of access to finance as a basic human right.

Majority of our people are not able to lead a sustainable livelihood due to the negative listing that they have in the credit bureaux. The poor in our country are the ones who continue to pay the highest price for credit in our country and who are the victims of a credit system that has been grossly unfair and neglected by our lawmakers and regulators in the past.

We do welcome the passing of the National Credit Act that came out as a result of our own Financial Sector Transformation Campaign. However the current act is inadequate and the Department of Trade and Industry has been at the forefront of excluding the stakeholders involved in the Financial Sector Transformation Campaign in the process of drafting the regulations.

The rich in our country continue to enjoy the benefits of our democracy and freedom through tax amnesty, off shore investment amnesty amounting to billions of rand being written off. This year alone small business will benefit from a tax amnesty, a measure that we do welcome.

It is against this background that the SACP calls for a once off credit amnesty for the 5 million people that have been blacklisted and thus denied access to housing loans and even access to jobs. Poor communities are excluded and cannot benefit from the interventions of our own government in the informal economy and even low-income housing subsidies because of blacklisting.

The credit bureaux seems not to care about the effects of a jobless growth and unemployment that has grown in our country, the growing levels of inequality and the rippling effects of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in our country. They seem to be preoccupied with the with making profits by selling credit information of those in the bureaux and thus importing policies not relevant and having a practical bearing on the realities of our people.

Equally the financial institutions have not been able to come to the ball in order to allow our people to leave a sustainable life. Their offer to grant a once off amnesty of up to the level of R500.00 is unacceptable. Their insistence to charge a compound interest rate of 17% on housing loans is unacceptable.

A nation with its citizens unable to have access to houses has got to unite and firmly act to make sure that our own hard fought for democracy is not undermined by the interest of profits but strengthened by putting first the rights of our people.

Issued by the SACP.

For more information contact:


 * Malesela Maleka**
 * SACP Spokesperson**
 * Tel: 011 339 3621**
 * Fax : 011 339 4244**
 * Mobile: 082 226 1802**
 * E-mail:** **Malesela@sacp.org.za**
 * [|www.sacp.org.za]**

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