South African Communist Party, Welkom, 6 October 2013 Statement delivered by SACP General Secretary Dr Blade Nzimande at the launch of the 2013-2014 SACP Red October Campaign Transform the Financial Sector to Serve the People! Let the land be shared by those who work it! Chairperson of the session; The entire leadership collective of the SACP; The alliance leadership and the MDM leaders present here; The leadership of the YCL SA, Today we are here in Welkom to launch our 2013/2014 Red October Campaign. Since its launch in 1999, the Red October Campaign has been an important campaigning platform for the working class and the poor in the country. We have decided to use October as a symbolic reminder to ourselves as South African communists of the significance of the 1917 Great October Socialist Revolution that took place in Russia. This was the first revolution that ushered in a workers’ government in the 20thcentury. In 2017 we will mark the centenary of that great achievement of humanity followed by the 2021 centenary celebrations of the SACP. We must use both these centenary celebrations to deepen working class hegemony and power in all sites of power. Specifically we must use these events to intensify our ideological onslaught on the barbaric system of capitalism. We must expose the system for what it is and seek to immerse more of our people in the revolutionary scientific ideas of Marxism. We are going back comrades this year to two important themes that we have campaigned about in the past, i.e. the financial sector campaign and the land campaign. The Financial Sector Campaign We are going back not because we have not scored major victories on these fronts but simply because since we have made these advances there is now a well-coordinated capitalist push to roll back what we have achieved. The sophisticated network of financial oligarchs, often aided by their class allies in the bureaucracy and media, are working to reverse our gains. We need to be vigilant and make a final push to deal a blow to the greedy bankers and other financial services providers who want to take us back. They want to use an excuse of the current capitalist crisis – something of their own creation after all – to entrench a rapid financialisation of our economy. Our financial sector campaign brought us a credit amnesty for example. Secondly we now have progressive legislation in the form of a National Credit Act and we have National Credit Regulator (NCR) which is now a vigilant monitor on the mainstream financial players. We have seen already the good work the NCR has undertaken in dealing with illegal activities of the Mashonisas. As an outcome of our initial campaign we had the launch of Mzansi account, a product that has reached up to 10 million initially unbanked, mainly the poor and the working class. The banks do not like the Mzansi account because that was an imposition on them. They are hard at work to close down Mzansi account; they are doing all to undermine this account through various commercial propositions for “low cost banking”. We must defend this achievement. In many parts of our townships we now have Automatic Teller Machines (ATMs). Incidentally the banks do not see the benefits that have accrued to them as a result; instead they now are closing these ATMs and several branches that they have opened in the townships. Our campaign has seen a successful lifting of the red lining on the working class and working class townships. This year, our Red October campaign on the Financial Sector will focus on the following: 1. We welcome Cabinet’s decision on Credit Amnesty and call for its speedy implementation as a relief to the over indebted working class and the poor. Some of the financial institutions are opposed to this amnesty, yet it is their very reckless lending, as shown by the ballooning of unsecured lending, that is largely responsible for blacklisting the increasing numbers of people who are unable to pay. 2. The National Credit Regulator (NCR) needs to be defended against bully tactics by forces that are opposed to the fulfilment of its mandate, especially with regard to protecting consumers against immoral market conduct. We have noted attempts, spearheaded mainly by the financial providers, to seek to swallow the NCR and let it work under the toothless Financial Services Board which in the main is controlled by the very same financial providers. The SACP is opposed to this idea of twin peaking. 3. Consequently and as a result of the reckless landing practices of the Financial Institutions, many workers are hit hard with Garnishee orders. We also need to point out that there is massive abuse of the Garnishee order system. This is caused by possible collusion between credit providers and unscrupulous and corrupt court officials, who are responsible for the issuing of such orders. We are calling for investigation into the administration of the garnishee order system, and those that have caused misery to thousands of ordinary working people of this country to be exposed. 4. The SACP welcomes the decision by the National Credit Regulator to impose a number of penalties on the African Bank after conducting a series of investigations which revealed gross abuse in its lending practices. These penalties need to be implemented with immediate effect, especially in relation to the de-listing of consumers who were adversely affected due to the reckless practices of the bank. We had hoped however that a maximum fine was to be imposed to serve as a deterrent on all the financial institutions that feed on the desperate situation of the poor. We are also of the view that this is just but a tip of the iceberg and if similar investigations are to be carried out throughout in a larger scale, especially focusing on the BIG FOUR banks, much more abuses in the system would be unraveled. Once again we have been vindicated by the outcomes of this investigation that some of the big banks are now competing with Mashonisas in the reckless lending space. 5. We reiterate our earlier demand for Community Re- investment Programmes. The financial services sector is sitting on billions of Rands in reserves, with some estimated at more than 500 billion Rands. Significant amounts for this can be invested in job creating, productive sectors of the South African economy, including manufacturing and infrastructure programmes. Thousands of young people remain unemployed yet the bosses in the financial sector are sitting on such huge resources. The Community Re- investment Programmes should compel the financial services sector, especially the banks to invest massively in the development of the country and its people, rather than on short-term speculative activities of trading money with money. 6. The SACP and its partners in the Financial Sector Campaign Coalition will Defend Mzansi account against all attempts to render it ineffective and subsequently shut it down. We have noted with disdain attempts to reverse this important gain of our campaign. 7. We also call upon Treasury to take co-operative banking seriously. The Co-operatives Bank Development Agency is being under-funded and is not being taken seriously, since the passing of the legislation in 2007. As a result there is low growth and lack of awareness about the co-operatives banks. 8. We call for the pension fund industry to invest in the development potential of our country. In particular union investment schemes should be used to help government to redress infrastructure backlog, particularly in the rural areas and the townships. We cannot allow workers’ funds to be used to reinforce and consolidate the current wrongs in the deficiencies of the capitalist financial sector. Billions of Rands from workers’ funds are used to build malls and thus feed into the current consumerist trajectory. It is important for the trade union movement to put their money where their priorities are – JOB CREATION! 9. Greater transparency is required with both the long term and short term insurance industry. These two in the main, have been operating under a huge veil of secrecy, especially as it relates to issues of access where working class and poor consumers are concerned. 10. The SACP calls for the ‘massification’ of consumer education and financial literacy programmes for the poor and working class consumers of financial services. The financial services sector has a huge obligation and responsibility in financial consumer education. 11. This is why comrades, the SACP is calling for the second financial service sector transformation summit, through NEDLAC. Such a summit should take stock of the implementation of the 2004 agreements and develop further targets for the transformation and complete overhaul of the financial services sector of our country. Comrades, we would not be able to carry forward our struggles unless we are properly organised. In this regard the first task we have is to strengthen the organisational capacity and presence of the Financial Sector Campaign Coalition (FSCC) in leading these struggles. This means that we have to mobilise activists, the trade union movement, the alliance and progressive NGOs and Community Based organisations to play an active role in the affairs of the FSCC. We need to strengthen pressure from below in order to throttle the financial bosses, who are organised through the reactionary BASA and use it as their shield. Land and Agrarian Reform This year we mark the centenary of the enactment of the Land Act of 1913, which in the main legalised colonial land dispossession which started many years before then. The 1913 Land Act served as a basis to introduce apartheid subjugation and exploitation of the black majority. Thousands of our people were subjected to brutal land dispossession and moved to Bantustans where they were restricted to unproductive land and subsequently forced into a migrant labour system. Those who sought to be bold to resist forced removals from the land of their own were brutally suppressed. Their sacrifices have always inspired our people to wage relentless fights against the colonial dispossessors. The new fight remains ending capitalist class inequality on land ownership and usage, and move towards more public usage of the land to meet the requirements of food security and sustainable land use. Today our people stand victorious and yet they are still without their land. This has had a negative impact on the capacity of our people to be able to lead sustainable livelihoods. Investment in agriculture, agricultural research and innovation has declined drastically. Agricultural produce is mainly targeted at export markets resulting in our country being a net food importer. The rural economy is still lacking behind in so far as transformation is concerned. All these are consequences of two main things, mainly land dispossession and liberalisation in the post 1994 period. We need to support the efforts already undertaken by government, albeit not enough, to reverse this neo-liberal liberalisation of agriculture. It has had dire consequences on our people and our food security. Once we are vulnerable on the front of food security we can kiss goodbye our sovereignty. The SACP welcomes government’s intention to move with speed towards the establishment of the Land Management Commission and the Land Valuer- General Office, so that we can do away with the practices of inflating land prices as part of undermining government’s land restitution programme. Today comrades we can report that through our joint efforts there is general acceptance in the movement that the neo-liberal policy of willing buyer willing seller doesn’t work. We need to urge that legislation governing expropriation is urgently amended in order to empower government to move with the necessary speed to address the land hunger in our country. Already our constitution allows for expropriation for public use. We must not allow liberals in the interest of a few who own hectares and hectares of land to scare us on this front. In this regard comrades, we need to strengthen governments’ interventions with respect to post- restitution support and intervention. The issue of dividing up land for small scale farming which has been successful not only in Zimbabwe but also in other parts of Latin America must be given due attention. In any sector where the market dominates the people’s interest are trampled upon. We must emphasise that at the centre of our interventions must be firstly to address the issue of hunger and poverty and not feed into the greed of big agro- processing monopolies whose sole interest is profit. Once again, we will do less on this front unless we are well organised and united to confront the challenges we have. We have a critical task of building local people’s land committees which amongst others must focus on comprehensive rural development, with a particular emphasis on building a women’s rural movement. Our interventions must also seek to strengthen the presence of the progressive trade union movement amongst the workers in the agricultural sector. Last year’s struggles by workers in the Western Cape, for instance, exposed serious organisational weaknesses in the capacity of the progressive trade union movement to organise in this sector. Political Challenges of the moment Comrades, we are in the middle of one of the most complex set of political developments that we need to understand as we execute our campaign. First is the deepening crisis of capitalism and how in its desperation it has resorted to violent aggression. This is why the case of Syria was a major victory, for the moment of course, a victory we must guard over, against unilateral imperialist military action. This is not to suggest that we are the apologists for the Assad regime. Similarly we must condemn the role of imperialist meddling in the affairs of countries by sponsoring uprisings and supplying them with arms. In Africa imperialist interferences have left us with difficulties in Egypt, in Mali and in Libya. Those who stood at the rooftop telling us that they are intervening to restore democracy have left several countries ruined and their pockets full with the resources of those countries. There are interesting dimensions in the global geo-politics with the rising influence of shale gas – which is likely to change how oil producing countries have been treated by the imperialists. Here at home we are launching our campaign against a backdrop of an increased imperialist offensive on the progressive forces. These reactionaries do not mind to spearhead stereotypes that in short-term amount to telling us that, blacks do not read. This is distasteful in the extreme and shows you how the right-wing forces have become more and more desperate in their attempts to unseat the ANC. These forces are often aided by some in our movement who have sought to attack the movement in the name of independent criticism. We must reaffirm one thing here comrades. Criticism and self- criticism are fundamental to the long-term success of our revolution. But criticism is not equal to grandstanding at the expense of your movement. Some people inside our movement are doing such a good job that the opposition does not even need to campaign for the elections. They, in the name of the working class and the poor, are donating our freedom and democracy to reactionaries. We are launching this campaign with the backing of a trade union movement that is facing serious challenges. There are threats of a walk out from COSATU coupled with remarks which have actually become some sort of a campaign that people will not vote for the ANC come next year elections. To these comrades we have one message. We wish to remind you of what Oliver Tambo said at the funeral of Moses Mabhida: “But Moses Mabhida knew that the very dignity of labour is that those who toil should not only enjoy the fruit of their sweat, but should do so as free men and women. Accordingly, he fought against all attempts to turn the trade unions into appendages of the property-owning classes and resisted all efforts to emasculate the working class as a leading social force for political change in our country. “Likewise, he was fiercely opposed to all manoeuvres which sought to educate the working class to repudiate its own history and allow itself to be turned into a base for the creation of a new political formation separate from and opposed to the ANC and the Communist Party. Moses Mabhida could take no other position because he had learnt and absorbed the lesson passed on to him and to us by the late Chief Albert Luthuli: that the ANC and SACTU were to each other a spear and a shield. “Moses Mabhida knew that the durability of the alliance between the ANC, the Communist Party and the trade union movement lay in strengthening each as an independent formation and in securing their cooperation on an entirely voluntary basis. He therefore always worked to ensure that these formations respected one another and developed among them a deep-seated feeling of revolutionary unity and interdependence.” We are also in the midst of a period where the trade union movement faces numerous challenges. There is an offensive directed at the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM). We have to defend the NUM as an attack on the NUM is an attack on COSATU as a whole. We also need to nurture and protect the unity of COSATU, and we must not place any matter above the unity of COSATU. As the SACP we stand for a strong, militant and independent COSATU, which is nobody’s conveyor belt. But it must be a COSATU that remains part of the Congress movement and our revolutionary alliance. Next year we are holding our forth national democratic elections, as we also celebrate 20 years of our freedom. The SACP wishes to use this opportunity to call upon all the workers of our country to join the efforts to ensure that the ANC is returned to power with an overwhelming electoral majority in the 2014 elections, as it is the only organisation best capable of responding to the many needs of the workers. Workers must be cautioned against wedge drivers who are trying to drive a wedge between the trade union movement and the national liberation movement. Working together with COSATU and other progressive trade unions, the SACP will be convening workers and community forums for workers to state what they would like to see incorporated into the ANC’s election Manifesto. Conclusion Comrades, we must go out with a sense of clarity and purposes on this common joint programme of action to defend our gains, to advance new demands and score victories that will deal once and for all a decisive blow against the capitalist system. Nothing will defeat a well-organised, united working class!!
Posted on: Tue, 08 Oct 2013 06:09:00 +0000
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