SACP Fifteenth National Congress Central Committee First Plenary Statement

Ekurhuleni, Sunday, 28 August 2022

The newly elected SACP Central Committee held its first plenary from Friday to Sunday, 26–28 August 2022, in Ekurhuleni, after the successful 15^th Party National Congress held in mid-July 2022. 

The First Plenary of the SACP 15^th National Congress Central Committee occurred amid a cost-of-living crisis, characterised by high food, fuel, transport and electricity prices, coupled with persisting high levels of unemployment, poverty and inequality. These reflect the capitalist system, which prioritises profits over the people and the environment.

Structural economic transformation 

The Central Committee commends the trade union federations COSATU and SAFTU, as well as their affiliates, for the joint National Day of Action held on Wednesday, 24 August 2022. Having been calling for engagements towards a joint trade union programme of action around the common interests and demands of the workers, the SACP fully supported the action. The key demands included a call for the government to address the cost-of-living crisis, the energy crisis and the persisting high levels of inequality, unemployment and poverty. 

The SACP will continue its efforts to achieve greater trade union unity and build a popular left front and a powerful, socialist movement of the workers and poor. 

To overcome the multiple crises affecting the working-class, the SACP is calling for a review of monetary, fiscal and international trade policies to drive structural transformation. The revised macroeconomic policy framework must support a comprehensive industrial policy to achieve industrialisation and create employment on a massive scale. Therefore, we are calling on the government to develop such a high impact industrial policy. 

Immediate measures to cushion the poor against the impact of the cost-of-living crisis, unemployment and poverty must include maintaining the Social Relief of Distress Grant and moving towards a universal basic income grant, as part of building a comprehensive social security system. 

The government should expand public employment programmes on a massive scale. 

To resolve the energy crisis, we are calling for the installation of solar power kits for working-class households, linked with localising manufacturing for the components to create employment. 

The SACP calls for increased public investment in new electric energy generation capacity. This should include investment in innovation, research and development in clean coal technology, and in renewable and cleaner energy sources. To foster a just transition, measures must be taken to protect workers and create additional employment in the energy sector.  

Increased budgetary allocation for maintenance at Eskom is essential to address the current load shedding problem. The forthcoming medium-term expenditure framework must offer a tangible solution and provide adequate resources to address the Eskom debt.  

The South African Reserve Bank’s high interest rate regime is itself inflationary. It compounds the cost-of-living crisis and impedes the prospects for inclusive growth and development. Therefore, SACP will intensify its campaign for a change towards a developmental monetary policy and expand the mandate of the Reserve Bank to include sustainable employment creation. 

The Central Committee reiterates its call for the state to take a majority stake in the African Bank as a part of the wider financial sector transformation imperative to establish a developmental state banking sector. 

The Central Committee called for acceleration of land redistribution, including through testing the current constitutional provisions and finalising new legislative measures to effect land expropriation without compensation. Expanding agricultural production, developing an artisanal and small-scale mining sector, and transforming spatial development through integrated human settlement in both rural and urban areas, should be among the key priorities for the programme.  

The Central Committee called for greater security of tenure for the approximately three million farm dwellers, who also need essential services. The government must pay urgent attention to these imperatives.  

The government must turn around state-owned enterprises and public entities to thrive and fulfil their developmental and public mandate. The SACP remains opposed to privatisation and will intensify its campaign for a diversified and predominant publicly owned economy as part and parcel of driving structural economic transformation.

Develop artisanal and small-scale mining sector, clamp down on criminality in discontinued mining areas

Mining capitalists who have left mining sites without land restoration and rehabilitation must be held accountable. Seeking accountability on land restoration and rehabilitation must include the pursuit of reparation, going back to the exploitation of our mineral resources under colonial and apartheid oppression. 

The SACP therefore calls for stringent enforcement of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act. As a matter of urgency, the Act must be strengthened to put the people and the environment before profits. 

The government should foster legitimate mining in sites that are still viable to mine, prioritising artisanal and small-scale mining co-operatives. The viability to mine these sites must therefore not only be judged on profitability, but the pressing need to reduce unemployment radically, build sustainable livelihoods, eradicate poverty and empower the masses. The government must therefore create an enabling environment and adequately support worker- and community-controlled co-operatives to support the artisanal and small-scale mining sector development. 

In discontinued mining sites that are no longer viable to mine, the government must strengthen its efforts to speed up land development. This requires developmental rezoning, repurposing the use of the land, where necessary removing gravel and dumps. The government must attach great importance to industrial and integrated human settlement development, inclusive of bulk and transport infrastructure networks. 

To protect public health, safety and security, fight criminality and clamp down on illegal activities, the government should strengthen co-operative governance to assist municipalities and communities with rehabilitation of derelict mines, sealing open shafts and restoring land in discontinued mining sites. The SACP is calling on the government to expand public employment programmes into this area of work and other environmental protection programmes.  

Once again, the SACP denounces the gang raping of eight young women and robbery of the victims and others in West Village, West Rand, in July this year. The Central Committee pledged its unwavering solidarity with the victims and communities terrorised by criminal gangs, including the so-called “zama-zamas”, in these deserted mining areas. 

We expect nothing less than successful prosecution and maximum sentences on the perpetrators of the gender-based violence and the other criminality. Law enforcement authorities must clampdown on lawlessness in discontinued mining sites nationwide and, across society at large, in every community.  

The Central Committee called for the strengthening of popular mobilisation to intensify the fight against gender-based violence in general beyond the National Women’s Month. 

Destruction of economic infrastructure  

The SACP is deeply concerned by the destruction and theft of economic infrastructure. This has become an economic activity, which involves domestic and international syndicates. And this has exacerbated South Africa’s economic crisis.  

For instance, the theft of cables, metals and other components from public infrastructure has cost the economy over R50-billion in 2021 alone. Affected infrastructure includes electricity transmission and distribution networks, rail infrastructure, robots, and social infrastructure like schools and clinics.  

The Central Committee therefore welcomed the government’s proposals to place a temporary ban on scrap copper and steel exports. The SACP agrees with COSATU that additional interventions should include tight regulation of the scrap metal sector. Going forward, those who deal in scrap metal must provide proof of its origin, failing which they must be held accountable and shutdown. 

Fighting crime, including drugs dealing in our communities  

Crime in South Africa has increased in the context of multiple capitalist crises. The effects include high levels of racialised inequality, poverty and unemployment, which affects approximately 12,3 million active and discouraged work-seekers. Severely impacted are black people, mostly youth and women, signifying the persisting legacy of colonial and apartheid social relations in the economy. 

Challenging the power of capital, which should include directing massive resources towards the historically disadvantaged communities, is required to tackle crime and underdevelopment. 

Neoliberal austerity and failing to spend the allocated budget have contributed to a deterioration in the capacity of the South African Police Service to prevent, combat and investigate crime. This affects mostly working-class and poor communities, while the private sector and the rich, who support neoliberal austerity, have been ramping up their own safety and security spending. In their hypocrisy, the rich have built security enclaves through elaborate private security edifice, while propagating further budget cuts in public safety and security, exposing working-class and poor communities to unabated criminality. 

The SACP will intensify its campaign against neoliberal austerity and failure to spend to rebuild the capacity of the police to prevent, combat and investigate crime. While campaigning for adequate state capacity and decisiveness, the SACP will mobilise an active working-class effort in communities to fight crime, including, but not limited to, gender-based violence, drug dealing, human trafficking, killings and mass shooting, house robberies, stock theft, hijacking of cars and houses, vandalising of infrastructure, as well as stealing of cables and other components.   

Emerging from the Central Committee, the SACP will engage with uMkhonto weSizwe Liberation War Veterans and other military veterans to assist communities to fight crime, working the Police. We call on business to contribute resources to build this community safety and security infrastructure, including Community Policing Forums.   

Unity and renewal of the ANC and reconfiguration of the Alliance    

The state of the ANC, our ally, and its declining electoral support are a major concern for the SACP. The SACP is especially concerned about the persisting worrying signs that move against the renewal and unity of the ANC and reconfiguration of the Alliance. 

The recently held ANC regional and provincial conferences have experienced numerous disputes, delays in dealing with credentials, allegations of money politics, and divisions along those and other lines of disunity. In many instances, there were no substantive policy discussions, as many of the conferences appeared to have been solely convened to elect new leaders. The developments that followed indicate that some contested leadership positions to take over government positions for factional and private economic interests. 

These and other worrying signs place our ally, and with it, the entire Alliance, in danger of losing the confidence of our people and experiencing further electoral decline. 

The necessary interrelated processes of the renewal and unity of the ANC and reconfiguration of the Alliance have become more urgent. 

Strengthening discipline, fighting corporate-capture and corruption, and deepening political education within the ranks of our movement are a key task for the renewal, unity and reconfiguration imperative to succeed.  

The ANC’s renewal and the Alliance’s renewal, unity and reconfiguration must include building ties with our political and class bases. This requires direct contact through democratic engagement and campaigns with our social bases, mainly the working-class.

Working with COSATU, the SACP will seek to strengthen the link between trade union struggles with community development struggles, organising the unorganised into trade unions and politically as well. 

The Central Committee wished COSATU a successful National Congress next month. Our expectations include that COSATU will emerge from the Congress stronger as a class-conscious trade union movement. 

The SACP expresses its unwavering solidarity with the workers in bargaining processes, across the economy, in the private sector, as well as in the public sector.

International solidarity  

The Central Committee reiterated the SACP’s unwavering solidarity with the people of Swaziland struggling for democracy and against the repressive monarchy. 

In Zimbabwe, the economy has almost completely collapsed and disregard of democratic basics continues unabated. The SACP reiterates its solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe. 

The regime in Cameroon is unleashing ethnic cleansing against the people in the south. The SACP calls a peaceful solution and an end to the killings. 

The SACP congratulates the people of Angola for holding free and fair elections and the MPLA for winning elections. The liberation movements across the continent must engage in self-introspection and reflect on the weaknesses that allow reactionary forces to gain ground in Africa. 

The Central Committee denounced the imperialist aggression by the United States and its NATO allies. It is through their expansionism as part of their imperialist aggression that the United States and NATO have provoked the war in Ukraine between the United States-dominated NATO as the principal aggressor and Ukraine on the one hand and Russia on the other hand.

The Central Committee strongly condemned the recent provocation of China in its Taiwan region by the imperialist regime of the United States. 

We reiterate our call for a peaceful resolution of the conflict in Ukraine and for an end to the war on all fronts. 

We pledge our solidarity with the people of the world amidst the United States imperialist aggression and foreign occupation, including but not limited to the people of Palestine, Western Sahara, Syria, Yemen, Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua. 

The SACP reiterates its support for the Cuban people and government in their struggle for the United States to lift its unilateral and illegal blockade against Cuba and unconditionally end its occupation of the Cuban territory of Guantanamo Bay.

The Political Bureau  

In addition to the National Office Bearers elected by the 15^th National Congress, the Central Committee elected the following from among its members to the Political Bureau.

National Office Bearers  

Solly Mapaila: General Secretary

Dr Blade Nzimande: National Chairperson

Joyce Moloi-Moropa: National Treasurer

Madala Masuku: First Deputy General Secretary

Dr David Masondo: Second Deputy General Secretary

Thulas Nxesi: Deputy National Chairperson

Chris Matlhako: Secretary for International Relations 

Tebogo Phadu: Secretary for Political Education 

Nomarashiya Caluza: Secretary for Fundraising

Fikile Majola: Secretary for Organising and Campaigns

Dr Rob Davies: Secretary for the Transformation of the Financial Sector 

Jenny Schreiner: Chairperson of Standing Disciplinary Committee (Head of the Office of the Secretariat)

Reneva Fourie: Secretary for Gender Co-ordination

Polly Boshielo: Secretary for Acceleration of Land Reform for Urban and Rural Transformation

Comrade Pat Horn: Secretary for Working-Class and Popular Power in Communities

Yunus Carrim: Secretary for Internal Media and Publications

Dr Alex Mashilo: Secretary for Policy and Research (National Spokesperson)