President Cyril Ramaphosa addressing the ANC NEC Legotla at the Birchwood Hotel in Boksburg. Picture: Itumeleng English/ Independent Newspapers.
Cosatu president Zingiswa Losi and SACP president Solly Mapaila have both urged the ANC and President Cyril Ramaphosa to rethink the country’s current economic and policy directions which they say are anti-working class.
The two leaders were speaking during the ANC’s NEC lekgotla held at Birchwood Hotel in Boksburg.
Mapaila said the capitalistic system must be revisited to benefit the working class and the millions of unemployed South Africans. The one-size-fits-all approach has not yielded positive results for the country’s poor, he said.
“We can’t use a one-size-fits-all posture. If we can remove the interests of the movement for the benefit of citizens we can change the lives of South Africans in a matter of a few months,” he said.
Mapaila said the country’s economy is still in the hands of white people more than 30 years into democracy. He called on the government to tamper with the system as it remains untransformed and arrogant.
“The small insurance groups tell us they do not approve and everything collapses and this creates capital.
“I want to address DGs and we have been here for many years ...There are areas we can leap in terms of transformation and the banking system will require direct intervention. Our political leadership is reluctant to tamper with this system. We need to change this system,” he said.
He said the ANC and the government has been infiltrated by those who have betrayed the masses in service of white capital and called on DGs to be bold and not to cower in the face of white capital.
“We are facing new levels of betrayal that we never imagined. There are to defeat this revolution. This was a victory of the masses of the anti imperial forces across the globe.
“As a country our micro economic measures have imposed austerity measures that have had an impact on the country which must be withdrawn unconditionally.
“We are told they are a guidance but the government sees these as an instruction.
“We must reflect on our monetary policies which have made us passengers in our economy. Capitalism has made us cheerleaders of the capitalistic systems ... we need a new trajectory,” Mapaila .
Losi called on Ramaphosa to reverse the decline of some SOEs, including the post office, SAA and other afflicted SOEs which have been sold off to private interests.
She called on President Cyril Ramaphosa to reverse the rot and selling off of SOEs, saying public servants are underpaid and overworked.
Parliament must pass key bills before the elections and workers must be assured that the ANC is still their home, she said.
“We call on the president to raise the SSD grants; to extend the presidential stimulus package to provide 1million jobs by April and 2 million jobs by November and to ensure the two-pot pension system by no later than the September 1 this year,” she said.
When it comes to SOEs and the retrenchments at the post office, Losi said the government of the ANC must reverse these.
“We call on the government to thoroughly intervene in the 36 municipalities that routinely fail to pay their workers; to provide support for Eskom to permanently end load shedding ...
“The government needs to urgently stop and intervene at the post office and reverse the 6 000 retrenchments,” she said.
During his address, Ramaphosa said the ANC led government has made progress in various sectors of the country’s economy, including ensuring rights to minorities and other vulnerable sections of society.
The ANC has been able to get the NHI Bill to become a reality which he said will be able to address inequalities in the provision of quality healthcare.
“The NHI is a central instrument to improve the health of all South Africans ...
“We need to improve the outcomes of our local government and our progressive lekgotla’s in the past have been able to establish concrete programmes that address the needs of our people,” he said.
The Star
siyabonga.sithole@inl.co.za