SACP Brian Bunting DEC Statement

11 August 2015

The District Executive Committee (DEC) of the South African Communist Party (SACP) in the Brian Bunting District held its meeting in Mfuleni on 09 August 2015.

On women’s month

The 9th August marked a very significant day in the gallant struggle against racist oppression and gender discrimination. We salute the gallant women matyres such as Lillian Ngoyi, Ray Alexander, Ruth First, Dora Tamana and countless more, especially the working class and poor, rural and urban, who fought tirelessly against a ruthless bloodthirsty apartheid regime.

Despite many advances in the post-apartheid South Africa, women still bear the brunt of poverty, unemployment, inequality, and gender based violence.

Meanwhile, the beneficiaries of our democratic transition are big business and monopoly capital. The transformation of the economy and workplaces has not done away with the patterns of marginalisation of black women. Not only government legislative action and implementation by working class struggles must be intensified to transform the workplace. The SACP in the district will remain a dependable force of the working class in this struggle.

The DEC will continue to support initiatives to provide free sanitary towels for girl children in our schools. The DEC also calls for a discussion on the scraping of Value Added Tax (VAT) on sanitary towels. Nature requires sanitary towels, it is not a luxury but a necessity for women and thus they must be made more accessible, affordable or completely free.

Closure of the GF Jooste Hospital

The SACP condemns the continued subversion of post-1994 democratic advances by the Western Cape government. Recently, the Western Cape Government has decided to close GF Jooste Hospital in Manenberg which serves the working class. This undermines access to health care for the poor. It will also exert pressure on existing health facilities. This decision is anti-poor!

The entire Alliance must rise and defend the existence and operation of GF Jooste Hospital through popular mobilisation and even taking the DA to Court, if need be.

Big business in communities

SPAR supermarket in Philippi Plaza is exploiting workers through using labour brokers and casualisation of workers. Having wrongfully dismissed over 20 workers, SPAR management further engaged in an unethical conduct of corrupting community leaders in order to betray all existing agreements of co-operation with all stakeholders. The reality is that development of malls in communities to corporatises working class communities in a manner that kills small business and co-operatives. Any development of malls in the working class communities must clearly demarcate areas for small businesses and prioritise employment of poor residents. As the SACP, we will continue to intensify our campaign against the parasitic conduct of SPAR. We will lead a consumer boycott of SPAR until they change their bigoted and exploitative conduct.

The onslaught against the police

The SACP condemns the persisting police killings in many parts of the City of Cape Town, in Mitchell’sPlain, Khayelitsha, and Somerset etc. We recommend that Operation Fiela must be deployed to fight gangsterism and the onslaught against police. We note that the media does not cover these police killings but jumps to sensationalise reports of police brutality in their attempt to spread lies that South African is becoming a police state.

Loan sharks

We further condemn the abuse of the social grants payment system by Oomashonisa Loan Sharks and other reckless lenders. The majority of social grant beneficiaries are tricked and exploited into debt trap in order to perpetually depend on such loansharks. The SACP will continue to campaign against these unscrupulous behaviour as part of our Financial Sector transformation campaign. But further we will continue to wage a campaign for our government to equip the post office to distribute the social grant and discard the current provider whose contract was deemed illegal by a court of law.

Public Protectors political games

We remain concerned about the posture of the Public Protector. The arrogance displayed consistently by Thuli Madonsela against the Executive and recently Parliament is a serious concern. In her preoccupation to project herself as a saviour of our democracy, she wants to arrogate power into her hands and thus undermine the constitutional role of both Executive and Parliament. It is clear that the Public Protector is increasingly putting her fitness to hold office in question.

Unity of the Alliance

On the state of the Alliance, we note the outcomes of recent conferences of the ANC and Cosatu and, therefore, congratulate the leadership. We remain resolute in our view that a functional Alliance is based on programmatic relations on the concrete realities on the ground rather than hostile posturing. Heading to the 2016 municipal elections, the Alliance needs to be more cohesive and united in order to provide confidence to the majority of the oppressed people under the DA administration. We therefore call for an urgent alliance summit to further cement our political programme moving towards the 2016 local government election

International front

On the international front, the Party remains committed to the solidarity with the oppressed people of Palestine and in this respect we will revive our campaign against Group 4 Security. In fact many south African companies and businesses that use G4s for security and transfer of their money and therefore they must be discouraged in order to isolate this abominable company that perpetuates oppression of the Innocent Palestinian people.

We observe that this is a week of international solidarity against the oppression of the people of Swaziland and as such we will add our weight and voice into the effort to reject the oppressive regime of King Mswati.

BRICS

We congratulate the BRICS countries for their commitment practically on tilting the global balance of forces. The establishment of the BRICS Bank is a crucial step towards ensuring a shift away from the exploitative International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Further, we applaud our government for being appointed to host the Africa Regional Headquarters of the BRICS Bank in Johannesburg. We call on the BRICS Bank partners not to repeat the undemocratic conduct of the IMF and the World Bank, in particular, the imposition of conditionalities which can only beget dictatorships.

Conclusion

Lastly, the SACP will hold a lecture in Mfuleni which be delivered by the Central Committee member comrade Reneva Fourie under the theme “No Women No Revolution”. Through the ongoing door to doors our structures have been engaged on, we came across a woman who is unable to move except sitting on her bed for almost eight years. She only demanded to be assisted with a wheelchair and as the SACP in the Brian Bunting yesterday, 10th August 2015, we will delivered her the wheelchair.

Issued by Brian Bunting District

Contact:

Benson Ngqentsu- District Secretary
Mobile: 0827966400
Masonwabe Sokoyi
SACP Western Cape Provincial Spokesperson
Cell : 0815846138 / 0765243242
Office: 021 696 2522
Fax: 086 558 2481
twitter: @SACPWC
Facebook: SACP Western Cape
Email: sacpwc.media@gmail.com