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The Young Communist League of South Africa (YCLSA) in Gauteng notes the African National Congress' (ANC) statement released yesterday, Tuesday 3 November 2009 directed towards our organisation. This was informed by our condemnation utterances made by the ANC Treasurer General Mathew Phosa at the global haven of capitalism - Britain, when he said that nationalisation is neither the policy of the ANC nor government.

We believe that the ANC, particularly its leadership cannot lead society from a watered-down and deliberate selective interpretation of the Freedom Charter. We remain firm on our position for nationalisation and socialisation of the commanding heights of the economy, as supported by the ANC Youth League.

The ANC's 1969 Strategy and Tactics states that the movement's "nationalism must not be confused with chauvinism or narrow nationalism...with the classical drive by an elitist group among the oppressed people to gain ascendancy so that they can replace the oppressor in the exploitation of the mass". Our contention as the YCLSA in Gauteng is that certain policies and practices promoted from the point of formal liberation in 1994 serve to hide and erode the actual content of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) as articulated over the years. Confusions that the 1969 Strategy and Tactics warned against were entrenched along with the economic stranglehold of what the ANC's 1979 Green Book identified as the enemy. The economic interests of the ruling class that thrived during and through colonialism and apartheid were not only allowed to remain intact. The White Monopoly Capital's (WMC) ownership and control of the economy of our country were intensified for so long as a few, Black exploiters joined as subordinates in the exploitation of the mass.

All this were advanced and defended with the 1955 Freedom Charter gathering dust. The Charter spelled in no uncertain terms that "the national wealth of our country, the heritage of South Africans, shall be restored to the people; the mineral wealth beneath the soil, the Banks and monopoly industry shall be transferred to the ownership of the people as a whole". As the YCLSA we shall not allow to be recruited to an ideological sleep during which the economic interests of those who flourished from national oppression, class exploitation and gender domination are advanced.

We reiterate our position that there are sections of leadership in our country who may find it difficult to implement the freedom charter in its progressive form not because it is not viable, possible and noble, but because of their new found economic interests. It is clear to every thinking being that such leaders, by either default or design, represent at the same time their new, private economic interests as they oppose nationalisation and socialisation of the commanding heights of our economy.

Our determination for nationalisation and socialisation remains unshaken. We shall continue our campaign in this area until the national wealth of our country, the heritage of South Africans, the Banks and monopoly industry, are restored and transferred to the ownership of the people as whole. The realisation of this objective will go a long way towards the elimination of socio-economic inequality that is ravaging our country, among others into corruption, crime, the many service delivery crises and self-centred factional battles for the control of our formations.