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The National Committee of the Young Communist League held its ordinary meeting over the weekend of the 28th to the 30th of August 2009. The meeting was taking place in the context of the forthcoming Special National Congress of the SACP to be held in December this year. The meeting also took place within the context of the ongoing global economic crisis, and various announcements on the interventions by government.
Our Condolences to the Mhlongo Family
The National Committee expresses its condolences to the family of Skhumbuzo Douglas Mhlongo, the young man who committed suicide due to the fact that he could not afford to pay a bribe to an official. We will in this regard intensify our Kabelo Thibedi Campaign, which has resulted in more than 10 000 people getting ID's. We will request audience with the Minister of Home Affairs in order to ensure that we mobilize the public against corruption, poor service delivery and incompetence at Home Affairs. This madness must come to an end, and it is only through public action that we can isolate the bad apples at the department.
On the Current Global Economic Crisis
The National Committee has received an extensive input on the Global Economic Crisis. The National Committee expressed confidence with the NEDLAC partners' intervention package, and hope that all of these will be implemented soon. We are however worried that the interventions are meant to restore the manner in which capitalism has been operating, when it is the same principles and vulgaries that has led us into this crisis.
We believe that the current crisis is in the real economy, and that the purchasing power of consumers has been eroded by loss of jobs, huge unemployment, a significant decline in workers share in the national income and the unwillingness of banks to avail credit. This has therefore, in our view, impacted on the profitability of factories and the decline in asset prices.
In that regard, the NC noted that part of the crisis is the fact that our economy is export dependent, mainly on raw materials, and the importing of these raw materials as finished goods in our economy. This has overtime created a jobless growth, with huge declines in manufacturing, auto, agriculture and finance; we urgently need to deal with this crisis.
The National Committee called for stringent conditions for companies that will receive intervention from government. We are aware that close to R3bn has been requested by companies in distress, and that the IDC is looking into this application. As part of the conditions, there should be a halt on excessive bonuses to executives, huge dividend payouts to shareholders, better wages for workers, and commitment not to retrench and in fact, targets for more jobs.
In cases where the IDC and government fail to intervene, we proposed that government should finance worker co-operatives that will assume ownership of these companies. This will limit the multiplier effects that come with closure of factories and retrenchments; every job, especially now, counts more than ever before.
We also believe that the stimulus package should take the form of social interventions, with investments in public infrastructure geared towards resolving the housing backlog, building new hospitals and clinics, building of schools, connecting the rural and the urban through road infrastructure, maintaining or restoring ailing public infrastructure. This, in our view, will lead to sustainable stimulus package that is oriented towards social interventions. We are also convinced that it will create more jobs, and lead towards consumer confidence and thus take our people out of poverty.
We also proposed the filling up of vacancies in the public sector. It is our held view that between the provincial and local government, there is a vacancy rate of more than 30% and at least more than 600 000 jobs available. By employing more people, in already existing posts, the government will be directly stimulating the pocket of the man on the street, widening its tax base, stimulating demand for houses and motor vehicles and thus, driving the economy into expansion.
The National Committee agreed with the call made by the ANC Youth League for nationalization of mines. We extend this call to also include the nationalization of the financial and energy sectors, as they are the driving force of our economy. The National Committee cautioned against opportunists who may seek to abuse the call by our sister organization in order for them to line up their pockets for potential BEE deals. We are aware that the government has taken a decision to halt issuing of mineral rights. We call on government to form a national company that will take ownership of the existing mines, as the beginning of this big step towards nationalisation. We also call on the creation of a state bank, which will assume the responsibilities played by the National Empowerment Fund, Land Bank, IDC and many other government financial institutions. We believe that this state bank should also focus on other services as provided for by the commercial banks, as they are clearly failing to cover the entire market.
On Statements attributed to Julius Malema about Blade Nzimande
The National Committee expressed concerns over the utterances attributed to Julius Malema towards the leadership of the Alliance. Many men far greater and better than Julius have travelled the road that he seeks to embark, and many more of them were doomed to failure. We doubt if the majority of members of the ANC Youth League shares his sentiment of insulting Comrade Blade Nzimande, as we know that many of them holds him in high regard. We also do not believe that insults should come first in the place of intellectual discourse, and that hurling insults is merely a form of expressing intellectual bankruptcy.
In the ANC and the National Liberation Movement, we have always referred to "narrow African Chauvinism" as a characterization of a tendency, not a label; this is known in the movement. We believe that Julius has crossed the line, and call on our sister organisation, the ANC Youth League, to distance itself from his insults. We want to also place on record that getting into discussions about what brand of whisky people drink, or what their social conduct is when they have drank it will not help the debate and can only hide the real issues behind racial transformation.
The NC also expressed support for the Economic Cluster Ministers, and agreed that any form of racial criticism towards them should be ignored. We believe also that our sister organization has erred by narrowly defining the economic Minister as only those belonging to the cluster. We believe that the function of economics in our country also lies in Agriculture, Social Development, Fisheries and Marines, and many other Ministries and not only those that handles cash or make trade. We believe that the consciousness of the Minister's concerned is what matters, and not the race. There have been black people who have betrayed the course of our history far worse, when revolutionary white, Indians and Coloured remained committed to that discourse.
We are also concerned that the manner in which the Julius Malema raised the issue will end up clouding the real racism happening behind the curtains in our country. For instance, many Opinion pieces and opposition parties questions the appointment made by the President of the ANC on whether they are Zulu, or whether they are members of the ANC and are Zuma people, when the same is not done with white people when they are appointed. The case of Bheki Cele and Judge Ngcobo on the one hand, and Gill Marcus on the other, is an example.
On the ANC 2012 Conference
The NC supports the statement attributed to Fikile Mbalula in the Mail and Guardian about the retention of Jacob Zuma and Kgalema Motlanthe being retained as President and Deputy President of the ANC respectively. The NC believes that there are attempts to try and discredit Motlanthe with the "Oil For Food" scandal, and hope that he will not be subjected to any malicious campaign. We are also of the view that the entire top six of the ANC should be retained, and in the same manner that we ensured that they are elected, we will campaign for them. We are aware of a systematic, organized campaign against the Secretary General of the ANC, Gwede Mantashe, and want to condemn such actions. These attempts also seek to put Mbalula against Mantashe, and should never be allowed to succeed.
On the SANDU Action
The NC condemned the violent nature that the action by the soldiers who are members of the South African National Defence Union. We believe that there is no form of grievance that justifies violence and threat to national security. We however call on the Minister of Defence and Military Veterans not to solve the problem by avoiding it, but by urgently giving the soldiers a hearing. We believe that the concerns of the soldiers, especially related to wages and transformation of the military, are genuine and should be addressed. We also advise the Minister not to dismiss the 3000 soldiers who participated in the action.
We condemn any attempt to try and bar soldiers from being members of trade unions, and do not agree with the sentiments made by the MKVA.