Friday, February 24, 2017

SACP Gauteng Province Welcomes State of the Province Address by Hon Premier David Makhura
20 February 2016

The South African Communist Party Gauteng Province welcomes the State of the Province Address (SOPA) delivered today by Honourable Premier David Makhura at the Greenfields Stadium in Randfontein, Yusuf Dadoo District.

We are pleased that the SOPA was successful, peaceful and stable, consistent with its character as a tribune of the revolutionary people.

Solidarity with the bereaved families of the 100 Psychiatric patients who lost their lives:

We congratulate and applaud the Premier for reaffirming the profound founding principle of our entire revolutionary movement, solidarity with the working class and poor.

We commend the sterling leadership of the Premier who started his SOPA by showing solidarity with the bereaved families of the psychiatric patients who died after being transferred to various Non-governmental Organisations (NGO`s) across the province.

We are encouraged that the Premier invited the bereaved families to the State of the Province Address and that he acknowledged their presence by reading out the names of those who attended. The Premier has also worked with the families and supported them in finding lasting closure by holding a healing ceremony held at the Freedom Park on Sunday, 19th February 2017.

We also congratulate the Speaker of the Gauteng Provincial Legislature (GPL), Comrade Ntombi Mekgwe for directing the house to observe a moment of silence in solidarity with the bereaved families. We believe that this was a principled revolutionary gesture by the Legislature. We therefore reaffirm our principled call for the provincial government to ensure that in implementing the internationally renowned policy of de-instutionalisation of mental health care, this function remains the core responsibility of the state. We call on government to provide proper facilities and trained personnel in order to carry out this function as its core mandate.

We also congratulate the families for their unwavering confidence in the ANC provincial government, and commit to work with them to ensure that the recommendations of the Health Ombud, Professor Malegapuru Makgoba are implemented without fear or favour.

Advancing a radical socio-economic transformation:

We believe that the SOPA has laid a solid foundation for a radical socio-economic transformation of our province to address the triple contradictions of poverty, unemployment and inequalities.

We welcome, in particular, the total number of net jobs created, that is, the jobs created taking into account those lost in the same period in our province.

We are convinced that this achievement is unprecedented and therefore believe that this achievement is qualitative, taking into account the cumulative effect over the years of the world capitalist crisis that imploded in 2008.

We welcome the outline of key interventions to grow the economy, create jobs and grow the township economy, driven by the motive forces of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR).

We call on the provincial government to take a firm stand against any attempts by retail monopolies that seek to derail and undermine the township economy.

We commit ourselves to working with the provincial government by mobilising the working class to fight any attempt to frustrate the growth of the township economy.

We firmly support the commitment to increase the infrastructure spend to propel economic growth, job creation, poverty eradication and the reduction of inequalities. We believe that the commitment to leverage infrastructure inputs to drive manufacturing and industrialisation is groundbreaking.

We also welcome the commitment by the provincial government to consolidate and intensify the development of the productive forces by delivering quality public education. This includes the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU`s) signed with universities in our province to support their needs such as infrastructure expansion for student accommodation and lecture halls.

We believe that the commitment to quality public education supported by the provincial government bursary contributions and the Tshepo 500 000 initiative is profound and historic and will address the needs of the youth of our province.

We also believe that the radical posture of the provincial government on land, to deliver infrastructure is profound and critical. We commend the provincial government for being decisive on this matter.

We also welcome the establishment of the Economic Advisory Panel as we have already noted the good balance achieved in the composition of the Panel. We hope that the Panel will appreciate and anchor its work on the principle that poverty, unemployment and inequalities affect mainly the working class and poor. We will monitor the work of the Panel.

We also commend Premier Makhura for an unwavering and principled commitment to clean administration and the fight against corruption and maladministration. We call on the provincial government to intensify its efforts to defend the public purse against looting and rampant corruption.

We welcome the SOPA and commend the Premier for remaining true, consistent and principled on the task of transformation, modernisation and re-industrailisation of our province to resolve the legacy of a Colonialism of a Special Type and white minority rule.

We are confident that the provincial government is on track to meet the ANC`s election manifesto commitments of 2014.

Issued by the SACP Gauteng province

Contact:

Jacob Mamabolo - SACP Gauteng Provincial Secretary
Mobile: 082 884 1868

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