South African Communist Party

SACP Politburo Statement, 18 August 2025

Monday, 18 August 2025: The Politburo meeting of the South African Communist Party (SACP) took place at Kotane House, the headquarters of the SACP in Marshalltown, Johannesburg, on Friday, 15 August 2025. The Politburo discussed a variety of issues related to the national and international political situation so as to determine for the Party the short-term and medium-term strategy and tactics related to those political questions. Among others, the Politburo planned for the upcoming SACP Central Committee meeting to be held on 29 to 31 August 2025.

People’s Red Caravan

The Politburo reflected on the 104^th anniversary programme of the Party whose pinnacle was the Party rally in KwaDlangezwa in KwaZulu-Natal province. The anniversary of the SACP takes place alongside the historic People’s Red Caravan that has taken place in North West Motlhabe village in June and in Mpumalanga Matibidi village in July. In these week-long events, the SACP stationed itself in these villages to work with the community in building self-sustainability through local food production systems predicated on solidarity and self-reliance. The People’s Red Caravan reflects our Party’s orientation as an organisation rooted in the grassroots working as part of the community to establish the building blocks of our socialist vision.

National Democratic Revolution and the Alliance

The Politburo reaffirmed the SACP 15^th National Congress and SACP 5^th Special National Congress resolutions, stating the urgent need for the Party and the working class to rescue the national revolution from a rightward slant instituted by increased dominance of bourgeois political and economic interests in how the national political economy is marshalled. The Politburo noted the tangible political decline of the progressive camp that places the national revolution in the increased danger of a decisive defeat. The decline of political hegemony of the democratic liberation movement requires a strategic re-examination of the tactics at play for the SACP and the Alliance at large. The Politburo affirmed the Party’s approach to elections and the defence of the Alliance as a political mechanism to deepen the national democratic revolution.

National Dialogue

The Politburo discussed the varied processes underway regarding the National Dialogue. The SACP affirms the idea of a national dialogue as a platform for a thoroughgoing national reflection on the challenges that face the country, at the centre of which include crisis-high rates of poverty, unemployment, inequality in all its expressions and the scourge of crime and violence.

However, from the standpoint of the SACP, the process underway at this particular moment is marred by questions of lack of inclusivity, which leads to the apparent illegitimacy crisis for the dialogue process itself. The legitimacy of the National Dialogue process lies in its inclusivity, ensuring it is genuinely a whole-of-society process. As things stand, the process leaves much to be desired and requires urgent re-engineering. The function of the government in a process of this nature is that of offering all the support and co-ordination needed to facilitate effective national dialogue among the citizenry, and not that of an institution that decides the agenda, content, direction and outcomes of the process.

The dialogue, at a substantive level, belongs to the citizenry and not to the government authorities. This is because a dialogue is a platform for citizens, among others, to direct critique towards the government on key social and political matters and therefore to call for government policy review. To that extent, the diversity of the process and its inclusiveness are key and need not be limited by overbearing presence of government bureaucratic elements who want to see the outcome reiterate government policy amid its failures for over 30 years to overcome crisis rates of unemployment, poverty and inequality and clamp down on crime and violence, among others.

The many examples of inadequate conception and operation of the dialogue is the exclusion of the SACP from the national dialogue. While some withdrew even before they could be invited and were persuaded by the government to not withdraw, and others withdrew after being invited and forming part of initial preparatory processes, the SACP was excluded altogether. Therefore, our absence from the National Dialogue Convention on Friday, 15 August 2025, was not because we rejected an invitation but because we were excluded and left behind in a process where the government’s key mantra was to leave no one behind.

The SACP continues to call for a national dialogue that is based upon the popular interests of the majority of our people, being the working class and the popular masses, and not a tick-box exercise or a process driven mostly by elitist interests. To that end, the SACP will engage all those involved to ensure that the process is modified of these flaws.

National crisis of crime and violence

The Politburo discussed the worsening crisis of violence and crime in the Republic. Following the now famous press conference of the KZN Police Commissioner, General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, the SACP is calling for a thoroughgoing investigation of the allegations raised by General Mkhwanazi. If true, the allegations by General Mkhwanazi confirm the standing view of the SACP that the criminal justice system is ridden with corruption that ties certain officials, including senior officers, with the criminal underworld, thereby rendering the existing core of honest, untainted and diligent officials and officers ineffective.

The SACP thus commends the brave initiative of General Mkhwanazi from which emerges a real opportunity to cleanse the criminal justice system of corruption and capture through the judicial commission of enquiry announced by the President. The SACP calls for the support of the judicial enquiry and its expediting in line with the provisions stated in its promulgation.

South African Reserve Bank’s mandate

The SACP Politburo discussed the urgent need for repositioning of the South African Reserve Bank to play a developmental role in the state. This must include employment as part of its mandate, explicitly, and holding it accountable for the failure to achieve the constitutional mandate to ensure balanced and sustainable growth.

To be sure, South Africa has never realised balanced and sustainable growth since the adoption of the constitution, which mandates the South African Reserve Bank as the central bank of the Republic to exercise its powers and functions in the interest of achieving sustainable and balanced growth. Problematic as it is, the inflation targeting regime set by the National Treasury allows for some flexibility, within a range of a lower bound of 3 per cent and an upper bound of 6 per cent. However, the South African Reserve Bank has chosen to ignore everything in the range and pursues a more conservative monetary policy stance by targeting the lower end of the range. While not stating how it intends to achieve this, experience and history tell us that the Reserve Bank will increase interest rates.

Interest rate increases will increase the cost of borrowing, including for new or expansionary productive investment and operational continuity and sustainability of co-operatives and small, micro and medium-sized enterprises that are forced to borrow to pay remuneration and operational costs, among others, as a result of the government’s failure to pay them within 30 days. The results will be negative for the economy, including for inclusive growth as a target that is yet to be realised. High interest rates strangle the economy. They do not unlock productive investment but instead enrich finance capital monopolies while suffocating workers, households, co-operatives and small enterprises. Under the regime of high interest rates and associated hikes, families are forced to pay more for mortgages, vehicles and basic loans, reducing their ability to meet daily needs. The outcome is stagnation, persisting high unemployment, poverty and inequality. We have been in this crisis scenario for a long time now.

Whatever can be said, it cannot be the mandate of the Reserve Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee to pursue a more conservative monetary stance in the context where the narrow policy of inflation targeting underpinned by a high interest rate regime and associated hikes has dismally failed to help South Africa achieve balanced and sustainable growth and overcome the crisis rates of unemployment, poverty and inequality. The conduct of the Reserve Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee leaves much to be desired. It is deeply problematic and demands scrutiny.

Therefore, the SACP calls on the National Treasury to take action in line with its macro-economic policy co-ordination mandate as provided for in the Public Finance Management Act, based on the constitution, and as outlined in the statement responding to the Reserve Bank issued by the National Treasury on 1 August 2025. In the statement, the Minister of Finance, Enoch Godongwana, made it clear that, “It is well established that policy making responsibility in this area resides with the Minister of Finance, working with the President and the Cabinet, who set the inflation target in consultation with the South African Reserve Bank (SARB)”.

The action that must be taken includes finalising the mandate of the Reserve Bank in line with the constitution, through a review process based on democratic values and mandate. This must encompass the constitutional imperative for the powers and functions of the Reserve Bank and their exercise by the bank to result in balanced and sustainable growth. It must support industrialisation and, linked with this, explicitly include maximum sustainable employment as an indispensable mandate and a key performance target by which the Reserve Bank is, among others, held accountable.

The SACP has long advocated for a dual interest rate framework, including adequate support for co-operatives and small, micro and medium sized enterprises, with more favourable terms such as moderate interest rates for productive investment and operational sustainability towards balanced and sustainable growth. We have fought against the exploitative system of compound interest rates, for example, on household mortgage bonds, and have called for its review. We remain strategically consistent and reiterate these development policy calls.

COSATU Central Committee

The SACP awaits with anticipation the upcoming Central Committee of COSATU as a key platform for the federation to engage on key matters affecting the working class broadly and its members in particular. COSATU remains the biggest, most influential and most significant workers’ trade union federation in the country. Its activities and decisions are important for the fate of both the organised workers and unorganised workers of South Africa.

The Politburo expressed the SACP’s support for COSATU as it prepares for and conducts the proceedings of its Central Committee. As part of that support, the SACP will continue to engage with COSATU on all issues affecting the working class while asserting the organisational independence of the federation and its affiliate unions. It is the conviction of the Communist Party that a strong COSATU is crucial for a vision of a future socialist South Africa.

The unity of COSATU remains an important concern of the SACP. As such, we call for a united COSATU Central Committee meeting. This should in turn lead to a united federation capable of advancing a class-conscious workers’ programme, including tackling neo-liberalism and its restructuring and policy impacts on workers, and leading the struggle for an end to exploitation and domination of workers and society by the bourgeoisie.

International matters

The Politburo analysed the international balance of forces and observed that the changing international context is, among others, characterised by a disjointed relationship among the Western powers. Albeit still strong because of imperialist ties, the disjointed relationship among the Western powers is manifesting in contradictions between Western Europe and the United States of America. The strategic discord among these imperialist powers reflects the emergence of a new age in international affairs, an age of a multipolar world. The multipolar world on the verge of coming to surface occurs against the backdrop of the United States’ inability to respond to the industrial growth of China and its own industrial limitations which have been worsened by concomitant geopolitical realignments virtually undoing the seemingly incontestable controlling status of western imperialism. This reality reflects the imminent change in the formation of imperialism as we know it, including on the technological front and on trade, investment and military fronts.

The Politburo discussed the challenges faced by Cuba as imposed by America’s blockade. The longstanding struggles for the liberation of the Cuban people from United States imperialism continue to be a priority for the SACP in its work. The Party continues to give its solidarity to the Cuban people and will continue to canvas for concrete relations between the state of Cuba and the South African state including on health issues, treatment of the scourge of sugar diabetes in which Cubans have made ground breaking progress.

The Israeli genocide on the Palestinian people is of great concern to the SACP and to that end the Politburo has confirmed the standing position of the Party to support the Palestinian people in the face of the unprecedented violence that has now been worsened by the rise of famine in Gaza.

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ISSUED BY THE SOUTH AFRICAN COMMUNIST PARTY,
FOUNDED IN 1921 AS THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF SOUTH AFRICA..