Newsletter of the Young Communist League of South Africa (YCLSA): Bottom Line
Issue 5, Vol 12: 26 February 2015
In this issue:
YCLSA Reaction to the Budget Speech
A crisis of "de-politicization" and the plight of the working class youth
Red card to corruption
Viewpoint by Khaya XabaYCLSA
Reaction to the Budget Speech
26 February 2015
The Young Communist League of South Africa [uFasimba] welcomes the first budget of our fifth democratic parliament as presented by the Minister of Finance, Nhlanhla Nene.
We appreciate that the budgets notes the strides made by the African National Congress [ANC] administration in building houses, delivering services like water and electricity, opening the doors of both health and education. More is still to be done to deal with the triple challenge of unemployment, poverty and inequality.
The budget speech notes that we still have people still living in shacks, schools without sanitation, and patients who are without healthcare. The ANC government has delivered on its promises; however, more can still be done to better the quality of lives of South Africans. As the YCLSA we still have faith in the ANC government and we hold a strong view that it is on the right track to move South Africa forward.
As the YCLSA we note the following from the budget speech:
Nine Point Plan
The Nine Point Plan which was mentioned by the President in his State of the Nation address again found expression in the budget speech. We would like to emphasize that we welcome the nine point plan by our government to push our economy forward. We are still impressed by the intention to resolve the energy crisis, revitalising agriculture, advancing beneficiation of mineral wealth and unlocking the potential of cooperatives.
We will intensify our call for a bottom-up approach of youth enterprise and cooperatives to deal with the issue of youth unemployment. Our government must look into the nationalisation of SASOL and ARCELLO-Mittal. The possibility of creating a national steel company must be looked into as well. We need to ensure that we have enough production capacity to meet the 70% local procurement commitment.
Energy
The recent re-emergence of power cuts and electricity constraints does not only have the potential to further perpetrate service delivery protests but it also has the potential to hold back growth in both manufacturing and mining. Both businesses and households stand the risks of raises costs.
It is for these reasons that our government must focus on stabilizing our energy supply and ensure that the recent blackouts do not destabilize our economy. The process of building new power station should be speeded up and prioritize the maintenance of power generation infrastructure. We welcome the R18 billion in electrification fund that is aimed at providing electricity to more than 875 000 households.
Local government
We welcome the review of local government infrastructure grants, we agree with the minister that this lead to simplification and consolidation of the financing arrangements. We welcome the prioritisation and special focus on local government. This level of government is very critical in that it is the closest to the people.
We hope the focus will results in better performance and the speeding up of service delivery. Most of the service delivery protests are as a result of the inefficiency by government to supply communities with services. We continue to call for the Detenderisation of the state; tenders breed corruption. Government must build capacity to undertake service delivery.
Unemployment
The scourge of unemployment continues to plague young people especially those between the ages of 18 to 35. The Youth Wage Subsidy that has been disguised by our government as the Employment Tax Incentive is not helping in any way whatsoever in eradicating unemployment. Instead capitalists seem to benefit more from this than young people.
The YCLSA will convene a Jobs for Youth Summit that will come up with alternative ways to deal with the scourge of unemployment and ensure that young people are active participants in the economy. We call for a review of the Youth Employment Accord.
Health
We call for the speeding up of the process of looking at funding models of the National Health Insurance. As the YCLSA we hold a strong view that the NHI will ensure that more of our people have access to decent healthcare and that healthcare is not only for those who have money.
While we applaud government`s efforts in fighting the scourge of HIV/AIDS including its work in limiting mother to child transmission we feel strongly that more should be done in educating our people about the benefits of practicing safe sex. We should be a nation that focuses more on the prevention of new infections than trying to cure those infected. We should work in unison as a country to limit new infections and ensure the practise of safe sex.
Education
We welcome government`s intention to increase NSFAS allocation to be at R11.9 Billion in 2017/8. We however still hold a strong view that this amount is not enough to supply the demand of students who want to access institutions of higher learning. The National Students Financial Aid Scheme pays different fees for students studying one and the same degree in different universities due to different price structures.
The fight against academic exclusion must include the principle, entailed in the YCLSA 2nd National Council resolution, that college and university fees must be standardised and that the government must consider regulating university fees.
We are against the narrative that institutions of higher learning do not have money, they do as a matter of fact, but they do not use that money to expand access to poor students. What they do is just to shove off the problem to NSFAS.
Issued by YCLSA Media
For more information contact:
Khaya Xaba
YCLSA National Spokesperson
Cell: 074 5 204 204
Tel: 011 339 3621
Twitter: @chedetachment
Viewpoint by Molaodi wa Sekake
Crisis of "de-politicization" and the plight of the working class youth
By Molaodi wa Sekake
YLCSA in the Moses Mabhida Province, in the context of its ideological, political and programmatic work will develop a systematic analysis of and develop recommendations on how to overcome problems facing the working class youth in the Province, this will include a specific critique and contribution on several youth documents that have been developed overtime as an attempt to respond to the plight of the youth. Such an endeavor will seek to outline our position on Youth Development, and as such inform a particular Programme of Action and commensurate institutional make-up for youth development, respectively.
In light of this however, we cannot abscond from our constant revolutionary responsibility of providing what we deem to be an adequate analysis of the current problems facing young people in the Province. We believe such a responsibility rests squarely at the door-step of the Young Communist League of South Africa, and such, we ought to assume it with the diligence and decorum it deserves, because failure to do so will undoubtedly plunge the whole agenda of youth development into "reactionary" hands of (neo) liberal, and conservative forces.
This task is very important given the prevalence of what the vanguard of the working class, the SACP has correctly characterized as an "anti-majoritarian liberal offensive", and what the ANC refer to as "Sins of Incumbency" on the other hand; the convergence of these two tendencies, coupled with unsavory "narrow nationalist-populist politics" paralyzes the agenda of working class youth emancipation and as a result stall youth development in particular. Some may ask: "But how can this be the case?" Our answer as the YCLSA in the Moses Mabhida Province is derived out of a particular "class narrative".
At the time when the national liberation movement seeks to fast-track and radicalize the process of social and economic transformation there are forces that run counter to such a liberaroty programme; the irony of such a reality is not that it is challenged by outside forces (their attitude is always predictable, and therefore nothing amazing) but the fact is that it is faces internal resistance by those who clam to be members of the ANC. While all of us in the MDM structures are committed to the programme of social and economic freedom as far as youth development is concerned, there are people internally wearing the same regalia as ours, chanting the same songs, spewing same revolutionary phrases but who are part of part reproducing youth unemployment, poverty and thus entrench inequalities, by taking advantage of the plight of the youth and using them as political pawns to fight their political battles, this not only requires a scathing criticism, but also disciplinary measures. The working class youth cannot be held at ransom by a self-serving `political elite` - both young and old.
The simple `hierarchy` of leadership-membership was not meant to assume exploitative dimensions but rather to give organizational shape as far as political functions and responsibilities are concerned, but what we witness is a situation in which the poor membership, the poor youth in particular, is used as a "political bank" to fulfill the insatiable appetites of self-serving politicians, who cannot argue their case through organizational processes and subject themselves to organizational discipline however difficult things could be. The case in point is the "march" to ANC offices in the Province "allegedly" by "members of the ANC from the branches".
This is not merely a betrayal of revolutionary consciousness, but a crime. People who are brought into such "grievance marches" to offices of the movement are young people who are suppose to be in class during weekdays not marching under the behest of the interests of political figure(s); if you deny that young person a chance to attend school, how will they make it in life? Is a march against the movement imparting any skill in that person, other than creating of a sense of "entitlement" on the part of the youth? Is this not a reproduction of social ills when such individuals no longer qualify and make it in life, and thus become part of the poverty-unemployment statistics? Is this not a crime that is prosecutable?
The unemployed working class youth simply because it is not in the labour market, is conscripted into a fictitious "political market" that has nothing to do with their material conditions, but rather to be "hewers of wood and drawers of water" at the behest of some individuals who are monied, and thus can command money-based respect however counter-revolutionary such might be, and issue commands to the poor troop that expects meager rewards at the end to the day in the political market at the helm of which is the political elite - young and old. To the elite unemployment is beneficial, because it offers them a ready made troop of young people from which to recruit to fight political battles, this runs counter to the professed revolutionary task of " creating employment ", and therefore it qualifies to be declared "counter-revolutionary" and punishable, and be nipped in the bud once and for all.
The intention of some in the movement is to go against the very sacrosanct tenets of the movement and amass as much wealth as possible, and to do that they must capture political power and as a result the organizational machinery. This normally occurs through `buying` of votes from the helpless and hopeless members during Congresses. Therefore, those who want power at all cost always seek to create a pool of "dependent" young people who will neither reason nor respect the organization, whose goal is not self-development but "recipients" of meager monetary hand-outs gotten from the "political elite" on the basis of being sheepish foot-soldiers for a particular "faction". We believe that NEITHER revolutionary cadreship NOR transformative consciousness can be cultivated out of such situation. In the same breadth, there are young people who get elected on the ticket of youth development, yet inversely create a pool of dependent young people so that they become the ever-ready exploitable "political property" of the `nascent` political elite - young and old.
Often perpetrators are not concerned about the ideological and policy direction of the movement but rather constitute a parasitic core that - literally and figuratively - `milks the udder` of a developmental political machinery until it oozes blood, and as a result voraciously feed and fulfill their insatiable personal political appetites, with a simultaneous disavowal of any semblance of revolutionary morality, and sensitivity. While the politically used and exploited poor youth goes back to conditions where there is no food on the table, the political elite assumes a celebratory limelight of decadence in "cosy" places, and spend thousands and thousands of rands on sparkling, if not bubbly wine, as they dine to the latter, and yes, with the so called "masses of our people" away in "candlelight" shanty places, not to cause traffic on `reserved` seats, and dampen the celebratory mood of the `monied` elite.
We therefore call upon all progressive and revolutionary forces and structures to be sensitive to the plight of the youth, and prevent any abuse of the working class youth. Instead of squandering its energies on futile activities and being used as pawns in political battles, the youth must go to school, start co-operatives, and businesses; be part of art programmes - poetry, music, performance, as well as sporting activities, such as netball, soccer. Where there are no such facilities [for some of these activities] the youth must organize itself, work with the local leadership of the YCL and engage their local authorities [municipalities] and demand that which is developmental, and productive.
The YCLSA in the Moses Mabhida Province, along with other PYA structures in the province, have a very huge task, and that task is to advance a massive politicization of the youth, because it is as a result of massive de-politicization that the working class youth is susceptible and gullible to poisonous politics, and reactionary activities; the crisis of "de-politicization" was stressed by our SACP Provincial Secretary political report in the last Provincial Congress of the Party, and it is upon us to combat it aggressively.
Every YCLSA cadre in the Moses Mabhida Province will at all times demonstrate selflessness, sensitivity and humility in the deepening of the NDR towards a socialist society, because we are the ones we have been waiting for, and dare [we] lose sight of the revolutionary task ahead, we are our own liberators.
"Away with the privatization of the movement away, forward with organizational discipline forward".
SOCIALISM IS THE FUTURE, BUILD IT NOW!
Amandla, Matla, Matimba!
Molaodi wa sekake is the Moses Mabhida Provincial Spokesperson
Viewpoint by Thabang Maseko
Red card to corruption
By Thabang Maseko
The South African Communist Party, Skenjana Roji district in Buffalo City Municipality will hold anti-corruption march on 27 February 2015. Combating corruption must not be seen as an end itself. This must be viewed as insurable from the broader goals of socio-economic development. It must also be viewed as a goal effort involving the government, the private sector and society as a whole. It cannot be the responsibility of government alone. Also we are observing that the corruption is entrenched in local government and perpetuated by senior officials of the municipalities, and these scandals reflects bad to the ruling party because of greed individuals.
Effective anti-corruption strategies must be intricately and intimately linked to sustained development. We must resist the worship of the capitalist value-system that defies individualism and the material possession as the pinnacle of human success. Only through broad and sustained efforts to a shared future, based upon our common humanity in all its diversity, can we succeed to defeat and eradicate the value system that justifies such naked selfishness represented by act of corruption.
Clearly, we need a new cadre of public servant who shares the vision of our government and people, who can manage their inherent conflict of interest between public and private interest and between satisfaction with what you earn and have and desire for more. This new cadre must subordinate the private interest to the public interest and must accordingly be committed to serve the public with the integrity. In this way we must succeed to create a harmonious relationship between private and public interest and treat these two as not mutually exclusive. But such a situation would not create itself or be arrived at automatically. It be enforced through of ethics informed by the ethical informed by the ethical values of society , we are trying to create as well other enforcement measures. Combating corruption in the public sector requires both internal and external measures.
Clean governance is a fundamental to the creation of developmental state. This responsibility of good governance is as important for public sector as it is for the private sector and civil society. Usually where corruption occurs, it involves both or all these parties.
There is a need for establishment of professionals` meritocratic public service that is able to uphold the value and principle of democracy, good governance, and Ubuntu whilst sharing the ideology of development. To succeed in combating is not enough that people should fear the law and punishment they must also be ethical and possess the ethos that makes corruption fail to thrive. In this regards, we need to prevent and punish what is morally wrong and to encourage and reward all that is morally right. We must inculcate of hard work in society as a whole and the broader leadership must lead by the force example. At some time, we strive to achieve a balance and harmony both material and spiritual needs.
The allegation that corruption is necessary caused by poverty must equally be rejected contemptuously. Even where they participate in corrupt activities, the poor are often the victims rather than the propellers of corruption. A strong and robust democracy is essential to ensure that all sectors of society including the media and organization of civil of society, private sectors, trade union and faith based organization jointly share the collective responsibility to promote the value opposite to developmentalism. What South Africa needs is a robust and very public campaign to mobilize communities both to report incidents of corruption where they are aware of it and themselves to refrain from knowingly being involved.
Furthermore as we celebrate 60 years of Freedom Charter, we should root out the corruption for better life for all.
Thabang Maseko is the EC Young Communist League SA Spokesperson
In this issue:
YCLSA Reaction to the Budget Speech
A crisis of "de-politicization" and the plight of the working class youth
Red card to corruption
Viewpoint by Khaya XabaYCLSA
Reaction to the Budget Speech
26 February 2015
The Young Communist League of South Africa [uFasimba] welcomes the first budget of our fifth democratic parliament as presented by the Minister of Finance, Nhlanhla Nene.
We appreciate that the budgets notes the strides made by the African National Congress [ANC] administration in building houses, delivering services like water and electricity, opening the doors of both health and education. More is still to be done to deal with the triple challenge of unemployment, poverty and inequality.
The budget speech notes that we still have people still living in shacks, schools without sanitation, and patients who are without healthcare. The ANC government has delivered on its promises; however, more can still be done to better the quality of lives of South Africans. As the YCLSA we still have faith in the ANC government and we hold a strong view that it is on the right track to move South Africa forward.
As the YCLSA we note the following from the budget speech:
Nine Point Plan
The Nine Point Plan which was mentioned by the President in his State of the Nation address again found expression in the budget speech. We would like to emphasize that we welcome the nine point plan by our government to push our economy forward. We are still impressed by the intention to resolve the energy crisis, revitalising agriculture, advancing beneficiation of mineral wealth and unlocking the potential of cooperatives.
We will intensify our call for a bottom-up approach of youth enterprise and cooperatives to deal with the issue of youth unemployment. Our government must look into the nationalisation of SASOL and ARCELLO-Mittal. The possibility of creating a national steel company must be looked into as well. We need to ensure that we have enough production capacity to meet the 70% local procurement commitment.
Energy
The recent re-emergence of power cuts and electricity constraints does not only have the potential to further perpetrate service delivery protests but it also has the potential to hold back growth in both manufacturing and mining. Both businesses and households stand the risks of raises costs.
It is for these reasons that our government must focus on stabilizing our energy supply and ensure that the recent blackouts do not destabilize our economy. The process of building new power station should be speeded up and prioritize the maintenance of power generation infrastructure. We welcome the R18 billion in electrification fund that is aimed at providing electricity to more than 875 000 households.
Local government
We welcome the review of local government infrastructure grants, we agree with the minister that this lead to simplification and consolidation of the financing arrangements. We welcome the prioritisation and special focus on local government. This level of government is very critical in that it is the closest to the people.
We hope the focus will results in better performance and the speeding up of service delivery. Most of the service delivery protests are as a result of the inefficiency by government to supply communities with services. We continue to call for the Detenderisation of the state; tenders breed corruption. Government must build capacity to undertake service delivery.
Unemployment
The scourge of unemployment continues to plague young people especially those between the ages of 18 to 35. The Youth Wage Subsidy that has been disguised by our government as the Employment Tax Incentive is not helping in any way whatsoever in eradicating unemployment. Instead capitalists seem to benefit more from this than young people.
The YCLSA will convene a Jobs for Youth Summit that will come up with alternative ways to deal with the scourge of unemployment and ensure that young people are active participants in the economy. We call for a review of the Youth Employment Accord.
Health
We call for the speeding up of the process of looking at funding models of the National Health Insurance. As the YCLSA we hold a strong view that the NHI will ensure that more of our people have access to decent healthcare and that healthcare is not only for those who have money.
While we applaud government`s efforts in fighting the scourge of HIV/AIDS including its work in limiting mother to child transmission we feel strongly that more should be done in educating our people about the benefits of practicing safe sex. We should be a nation that focuses more on the prevention of new infections than trying to cure those infected. We should work in unison as a country to limit new infections and ensure the practise of safe sex.
Education
We welcome government`s intention to increase NSFAS allocation to be at R11.9 Billion in 2017/8. We however still hold a strong view that this amount is not enough to supply the demand of students who want to access institutions of higher learning. The National Students Financial Aid Scheme pays different fees for students studying one and the same degree in different universities due to different price structures.
The fight against academic exclusion must include the principle, entailed in the YCLSA 2nd National Council resolution, that college and university fees must be standardised and that the government must consider regulating university fees.
We are against the narrative that institutions of higher learning do not have money, they do as a matter of fact, but they do not use that money to expand access to poor students. What they do is just to shove off the problem to NSFAS.
Issued by YCLSA Media
For more information contact:
Khaya Xaba
YCLSA National Spokesperson
Cell: 074 5 204 204
Tel: 011 339 3621
Twitter: @chedetachment
Viewpoint by Molaodi wa Sekake
Crisis of "de-politicization" and the plight of the working class youth
By Molaodi wa Sekake
YLCSA in the Moses Mabhida Province, in the context of its ideological, political and programmatic work will develop a systematic analysis of and develop recommendations on how to overcome problems facing the working class youth in the Province, this will include a specific critique and contribution on several youth documents that have been developed overtime as an attempt to respond to the plight of the youth. Such an endeavor will seek to outline our position on Youth Development, and as such inform a particular Programme of Action and commensurate institutional make-up for youth development, respectively.
In light of this however, we cannot abscond from our constant revolutionary responsibility of providing what we deem to be an adequate analysis of the current problems facing young people in the Province. We believe such a responsibility rests squarely at the door-step of the Young Communist League of South Africa, and such, we ought to assume it with the diligence and decorum it deserves, because failure to do so will undoubtedly plunge the whole agenda of youth development into "reactionary" hands of (neo) liberal, and conservative forces.
This task is very important given the prevalence of what the vanguard of the working class, the SACP has correctly characterized as an "anti-majoritarian liberal offensive", and what the ANC refer to as "Sins of Incumbency" on the other hand; the convergence of these two tendencies, coupled with unsavory "narrow nationalist-populist politics" paralyzes the agenda of working class youth emancipation and as a result stall youth development in particular. Some may ask: "But how can this be the case?" Our answer as the YCLSA in the Moses Mabhida Province is derived out of a particular "class narrative".
At the time when the national liberation movement seeks to fast-track and radicalize the process of social and economic transformation there are forces that run counter to such a liberaroty programme; the irony of such a reality is not that it is challenged by outside forces (their attitude is always predictable, and therefore nothing amazing) but the fact is that it is faces internal resistance by those who clam to be members of the ANC. While all of us in the MDM structures are committed to the programme of social and economic freedom as far as youth development is concerned, there are people internally wearing the same regalia as ours, chanting the same songs, spewing same revolutionary phrases but who are part of part reproducing youth unemployment, poverty and thus entrench inequalities, by taking advantage of the plight of the youth and using them as political pawns to fight their political battles, this not only requires a scathing criticism, but also disciplinary measures. The working class youth cannot be held at ransom by a self-serving `political elite` - both young and old.
The simple `hierarchy` of leadership-membership was not meant to assume exploitative dimensions but rather to give organizational shape as far as political functions and responsibilities are concerned, but what we witness is a situation in which the poor membership, the poor youth in particular, is used as a "political bank" to fulfill the insatiable appetites of self-serving politicians, who cannot argue their case through organizational processes and subject themselves to organizational discipline however difficult things could be. The case in point is the "march" to ANC offices in the Province "allegedly" by "members of the ANC from the branches".
This is not merely a betrayal of revolutionary consciousness, but a crime. People who are brought into such "grievance marches" to offices of the movement are young people who are suppose to be in class during weekdays not marching under the behest of the interests of political figure(s); if you deny that young person a chance to attend school, how will they make it in life? Is a march against the movement imparting any skill in that person, other than creating of a sense of "entitlement" on the part of the youth? Is this not a reproduction of social ills when such individuals no longer qualify and make it in life, and thus become part of the poverty-unemployment statistics? Is this not a crime that is prosecutable?
The unemployed working class youth simply because it is not in the labour market, is conscripted into a fictitious "political market" that has nothing to do with their material conditions, but rather to be "hewers of wood and drawers of water" at the behest of some individuals who are monied, and thus can command money-based respect however counter-revolutionary such might be, and issue commands to the poor troop that expects meager rewards at the end to the day in the political market at the helm of which is the political elite - young and old. To the elite unemployment is beneficial, because it offers them a ready made troop of young people from which to recruit to fight political battles, this runs counter to the professed revolutionary task of " creating employment ", and therefore it qualifies to be declared "counter-revolutionary" and punishable, and be nipped in the bud once and for all.
The intention of some in the movement is to go against the very sacrosanct tenets of the movement and amass as much wealth as possible, and to do that they must capture political power and as a result the organizational machinery. This normally occurs through `buying` of votes from the helpless and hopeless members during Congresses. Therefore, those who want power at all cost always seek to create a pool of "dependent" young people who will neither reason nor respect the organization, whose goal is not self-development but "recipients" of meager monetary hand-outs gotten from the "political elite" on the basis of being sheepish foot-soldiers for a particular "faction". We believe that NEITHER revolutionary cadreship NOR transformative consciousness can be cultivated out of such situation. In the same breadth, there are young people who get elected on the ticket of youth development, yet inversely create a pool of dependent young people so that they become the ever-ready exploitable "political property" of the `nascent` political elite - young and old.
Often perpetrators are not concerned about the ideological and policy direction of the movement but rather constitute a parasitic core that - literally and figuratively - `milks the udder` of a developmental political machinery until it oozes blood, and as a result voraciously feed and fulfill their insatiable personal political appetites, with a simultaneous disavowal of any semblance of revolutionary morality, and sensitivity. While the politically used and exploited poor youth goes back to conditions where there is no food on the table, the political elite assumes a celebratory limelight of decadence in "cosy" places, and spend thousands and thousands of rands on sparkling, if not bubbly wine, as they dine to the latter, and yes, with the so called "masses of our people" away in "candlelight" shanty places, not to cause traffic on `reserved` seats, and dampen the celebratory mood of the `monied` elite.
We therefore call upon all progressive and revolutionary forces and structures to be sensitive to the plight of the youth, and prevent any abuse of the working class youth. Instead of squandering its energies on futile activities and being used as pawns in political battles, the youth must go to school, start co-operatives, and businesses; be part of art programmes - poetry, music, performance, as well as sporting activities, such as netball, soccer. Where there are no such facilities [for some of these activities] the youth must organize itself, work with the local leadership of the YCL and engage their local authorities [municipalities] and demand that which is developmental, and productive.
The YCLSA in the Moses Mabhida Province, along with other PYA structures in the province, have a very huge task, and that task is to advance a massive politicization of the youth, because it is as a result of massive de-politicization that the working class youth is susceptible and gullible to poisonous politics, and reactionary activities; the crisis of "de-politicization" was stressed by our SACP Provincial Secretary political report in the last Provincial Congress of the Party, and it is upon us to combat it aggressively.
Every YCLSA cadre in the Moses Mabhida Province will at all times demonstrate selflessness, sensitivity and humility in the deepening of the NDR towards a socialist society, because we are the ones we have been waiting for, and dare [we] lose sight of the revolutionary task ahead, we are our own liberators.
"Away with the privatization of the movement away, forward with organizational discipline forward".
SOCIALISM IS THE FUTURE, BUILD IT NOW!
Amandla, Matla, Matimba!
Molaodi wa sekake is the Moses Mabhida Provincial Spokesperson
Viewpoint by Thabang Maseko
Red card to corruption
By Thabang Maseko
The South African Communist Party, Skenjana Roji district in Buffalo City Municipality will hold anti-corruption march on 27 February 2015. Combating corruption must not be seen as an end itself. This must be viewed as insurable from the broader goals of socio-economic development. It must also be viewed as a goal effort involving the government, the private sector and society as a whole. It cannot be the responsibility of government alone. Also we are observing that the corruption is entrenched in local government and perpetuated by senior officials of the municipalities, and these scandals reflects bad to the ruling party because of greed individuals.
Effective anti-corruption strategies must be intricately and intimately linked to sustained development. We must resist the worship of the capitalist value-system that defies individualism and the material possession as the pinnacle of human success. Only through broad and sustained efforts to a shared future, based upon our common humanity in all its diversity, can we succeed to defeat and eradicate the value system that justifies such naked selfishness represented by act of corruption.
Clearly, we need a new cadre of public servant who shares the vision of our government and people, who can manage their inherent conflict of interest between public and private interest and between satisfaction with what you earn and have and desire for more. This new cadre must subordinate the private interest to the public interest and must accordingly be committed to serve the public with the integrity. In this way we must succeed to create a harmonious relationship between private and public interest and treat these two as not mutually exclusive. But such a situation would not create itself or be arrived at automatically. It be enforced through of ethics informed by the ethical informed by the ethical values of society , we are trying to create as well other enforcement measures. Combating corruption in the public sector requires both internal and external measures.
Clean governance is a fundamental to the creation of developmental state. This responsibility of good governance is as important for public sector as it is for the private sector and civil society. Usually where corruption occurs, it involves both or all these parties.
There is a need for establishment of professionals` meritocratic public service that is able to uphold the value and principle of democracy, good governance, and Ubuntu whilst sharing the ideology of development. To succeed in combating is not enough that people should fear the law and punishment they must also be ethical and possess the ethos that makes corruption fail to thrive. In this regards, we need to prevent and punish what is morally wrong and to encourage and reward all that is morally right. We must inculcate of hard work in society as a whole and the broader leadership must lead by the force example. At some time, we strive to achieve a balance and harmony both material and spiritual needs.
The allegation that corruption is necessary caused by poverty must equally be rejected contemptuously. Even where they participate in corrupt activities, the poor are often the victims rather than the propellers of corruption. A strong and robust democracy is essential to ensure that all sectors of society including the media and organization of civil of society, private sectors, trade union and faith based organization jointly share the collective responsibility to promote the value opposite to developmentalism. What South Africa needs is a robust and very public campaign to mobilize communities both to report incidents of corruption where they are aware of it and themselves to refrain from knowingly being involved.
Furthermore as we celebrate 60 years of Freedom Charter, we should root out the corruption for better life for all.
Thabang Maseko is the EC Young Communist League SA Spokesperson
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