SASCO wishes the ANC Youth League a successful National Congress 05 November 2014 The South African Students’ Congress wishes its trusted ally and leader of South Africa’s youth movement, the ANC Youth League, a successful National Congress. The ANCYL will be convening its National Congress on the 25th November 2014. This Congress will sit after the beginning of a long process to rebuild the ANC Youth League, which includes reclaiming its position as a leading force of youth development and a critical body of opinion in the ANC and society in general. SASCO believes that the ANC Youth League Congress sits at a time when our nation needs to reconsider it economic trajectory. We remain encouraged by the resolutions of the ANCYL Youth League 24th Congress, which declared our generational struggle to be Economic Freedom in our Lifetime. We believe that this clarion call should find expression in the debates and policy positions that the ANC Youth League will be taking at Congress. Central to this generational struggle is the uncompromising position on the transformation of ownership and control of the economy of our country in favour of the working class and poor. SASCO believes that the outcomes of the ANC Youth League Congress must inform the policy review that should take place at the ANC National General Council next year June. Over the past twenty years we have done little on this matter of ownership and control of our economy. The macroeconomic choices we have made and their instruments have sustained unemployment, poverty and inequality. As a result of this our economy remains in the hands of white monopoly capital. SASCO is calling for a peoples’ economy where the state will play a strategic role in directing economic transformation. SASCO calls on the ANC Youth League to make clear resolutions on the re-introduction of exchange controls and management of capital outflows. We also call on our allies to be clear on the regulation of finance capital in our country, which continues to encourage speculative activities in our economy instead of investments in productive sectors of the economy. Part of this should be the nationalization of the Reserve Bank in the interest of democratic control and regulation of finance capital on our country. We are calling for the ANC Youth League to reaffirm its resolution on Free Quality Education, and to work with us to ensure that the ANC led government implements this resolution with urgency. SASCO remains true to its decision to allow the ANC Youth League branches to determine their own leadership without external influence and interference. We believe that members of SASCO, in their individual capacity as members of the ANC Youth League, should participate in their branches and influence the direction of the ANC Youth League. We however have remained concerned with suggestions of a so-called “SASCO take over” of the ANC Youth League. We believe that this narrative is malicious and is an attempt to isolate and discredit current and former leaders of SASCO, who are active in their own right as members of the ANC Youth League. SASCO wishes to make it clear that any member of SASCO or former leader engages themselves in the ANC Youth League as bona fide members, NOT as SASCO proxies. Those who have been driving this malicious narrative clearly expose their lack of appreciation of the Progressive Youth Alliance and how it functions. Within the PYA we have always encouraged the principle of dual membership in order to strengthen the youth movement in our country. The ANC Youth League has always appreciated the strategic position of students within the youth movement and has sought to recruit them, particularly those who are members of its trusted ally, SASCO. It is therefore not a taboo to find within the ranks of the ANCYL, those individuals who would have been SASCO members or leaders. In fact it is encouraging and consistent with the history of the ANC Youth League to have former student activist in its rank and file. What is important is not to isolate these activists but treat them as members of the ANC Youth League in their own right. SASCO refutes any suggestion of it being a lobby group within the ANC Youth League, this is peddled by wedge drivers and opportunists. We call on the ANC Youth League Congress to reject the use of its structures to contest the South African Students’ Congress as a vanguard of students’ struggles. We believe that the ANC Youth League seeks to lead the youth of our country of whom students are an important part, and it appreciates the strategic role of SASCO to lead this sector of youth. This resolution would strengthen the unity if the PYA, and is critical to the unity of students. We wish to take this opportunity to thank the National Task Team as led by comrades Mzwandile Masina and Magasela Mzobe for working with us as PYA structures and taking up the task of rebuilding the ANCYL. We believe that rebuilding of the ANCYL is an on going task of all progressive youth in our country. We are confident that the ANCYL will be able to emerge with a leadership that will reposition the ANCYL to reclaim its position in society and its leadership role in public discourse about economic freedom in our country. We wish the ANCYL a successful Congress, characterized by critical debate and unity of purpose. Long live the ANC Youth League Aluta Continua Issued by the NEC of SASCO Ntuthuko Makhombothi (President): 0718752209 Or Luzuko Buku(Secretary General): 0718793258
Posted on: Wed, 05 Nov 2014 11:38:41 +0000