The African National Congress [ANC] will be holding It’s National Conference from the 16th to the 20th of December 2022 at Nasrec Expo centre, and SASCO wishes the leader of the mass democratic movement a successful and revolutionary conference that is marked by fearless and radical posture on the following key areas of transformation.
ON FREE QUALITY AND COMPULSORY EDUCATION
On the eve of the 54th National Congress of the ANC, President Jacob Zuma announced what would prove to be the biggest ground advantage towards the attainment of Full free education. The announcement, not only would change the landscape of student funding the in the country, but it served as absolution and vindication to the sustained struggle of SASCO for a Free Quality Education. Albeit, the announcement wasn’t in its entirety a full realisation of the struggle for free education, but it was a Jericho moment in the pursuing of the struggle.
Therefore, as the 55th Congress begins, we want to call on the ANC to be found true and committed in affirming its previous resolutions and prescripts as it pertains to delivering free education.
The ANC, must be bold to buttress the strides they have made towards making education accessible to the children of the poor and working class.
Chief amongst some of the underminers of these strides remains the persistent commodification of education in South Africa. Children of the working class who fall outside the current household income threshold of NSFAS, who we categorise as the missing middle are still deprived from accessing institutions of higher learning, albeit their parents are not able to afford. Those who have been able to tuck and squeeze themselves in the gates of these ivory towers, they are drowning in student debt, to the tune of R19 billion.
As much as we must welcome all strides in improving access to higher education for the children of the poor and working class, we must also begin to interrogate the character and quality of this education. We must concern ourselves with the extent to which it is able to respond to the socio-economic needs of South Africa and the broader social project.
The ANC, in this conference must deliberate and resolve on taking charge of the direction of institutions of higher learning. The ANC government cannot invest R164 billion on the sector a year, while the programme and character of these institutions is still highly informed by a neoliberal agenda deriving its curriculum trusses from the western-colonial establishment.
Therefore amongst some of the deliberations which we believe must find expression at the congress are the following:
1. The household income threshold utilised by NSFAS must be increased from R350 000 to R600 000. This will go a long way in addressing the devastating plight of the missing middle students, who in the main are children of the working class.
2. Government must desist from cutting post graduate funding and increase it dramatically. The ANC cannot build a developmental state that is characterised by innovative economic drivers outside scientific research and development. And this cannot happen outside aggressive investment into postgraduate funding.
3. The ANC must deliberate on a revised student funding model that will at least maintain the following principles:
– The funding of NSFAS still largely relies on the taxation of the working class, and we are calling for a more comprehensive model which will see the biggest beneficiaries of Free Education become the biggest contributors – the corporate and private sector.
– Any funding model that we use, must not in any way yoke the children of the working class in chains and bondages of debt.
4. The ANC government must revisit the unchecked institutional autonomy of universities and colleges. We’re calling for the ANC to take a more deliberate and aggressive approach in guiding the direction of Institutions of Higher Learning.
5. The Department must consider the decentralisation of DHET offices across various provinces.
ON THE ECONOMY
The South African Student Congress (SASCO) ventures on an attempt to outline the key sectors of the economy that require rigorous changes, informed and guided by the Organisation’s ideological compass that is embedded in the Marxist- Leninist methodology of transformation.
The South African economy is a make-up of three fundamental patterns, which are ownership, organisation and distribution, therefore SASCO calls on the ANC to fearlessly confront these three patterns in favour of changing property relations along the lines of a transition from private to public property.
The ownership of the key and strategic levers of the South African economy are still in the control of the colonial capital grouping, and the nature of how the economy is organised is such that it servers a spatial preference for the beneficiaries of monopoly capital, a glaring example is how the ANC led government still permits commodified access to public property such as beaches and in other recreational centres.
SASCO calls for redress and the redistribution of the economy along the lines of addressing the past imbalances by ending the red tape requirements for competitive advantage for those previously marginalised, SASCO calls for the reinstatement of the BEE requirement in the procurement processes across all public entities and state owned enterprises (SOEs). SASCO calls for the ANC to introduce a cap for wealth creation in order to end oligarchs and monopoly capital in South Africa. SASCO calls on the ANC to reaffirm the declaration on ending the triple crisis in the country through radical socio-economic transformation.
SASCO further calls for fundamental changes in their following sectors of our economy;
(a) THE LAND REDISTRIBUTION AND RESTITUTION
The ANC must not betray the 54th Conference resolution as it pertains to land redistribution. It must in this conference reaffirm and uphold the expropriation of land without compensation as means to redistribution and restitution. This means that, the ANC must reinvest itself into the revision of Section 25 to allow for the expropriation of of land without compensation.
Anything short of this, will carry on to undermine the founding prescripts enshrined in the Freedom Charter in ensuring that the land belongs to all who work it.
(b) INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT IN INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER LEARNING
With an exponentially growing number of students entering Higher Education, there is an increasing need for us to bolster our efforts in growing the current infrastructure to accommodate and respond to this exponential growth in the sector.
We must as SASCO note and welcome the imminent commencement to the building of two new universities, in Ekuruleni and Hammanskral.
We must however also intensify efforts to focus on the infrastructural development of TVET colleges to ensure that they match global competitive standards in the quality of graduates produced. We must also begin to expand and build more TVET colleges, as this will prove to be critical to economic growth and development since artisans have proven to be the backbone of infrastructural development.
The sector is still only accommodating less that 30% of students in safe and adequate student housing through universities and colleges, we therefore must call on the ANC government to invest in building on more student accommodation.
Not only will this ensure that we complement access with support and success, but the safety and the lives of our students depend directly on achieving this objective.
(c) ON ENERGY SECURITY AND GERNERATION
As we begin the 54th Conference of the ANC, we must welcome the long awaited and overdue resignation of the useless and treasonous Andre De Ruyter! We hope this will serve as an inspiration or even a signal for the overrated inept and incompetent Jamnandas to follow suit and resign.
Energy security or the lack thereof under the pharmacists leadership and his goony has had a tremendously devastating impact on the ability of our members and students to adequately engage themselves in their academic obligations.
Loadshedding has carried on to affect our campuses and homes of students negatively, especially during their examinations.
(d) THE OWNERSHIP OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN RESERVE BANK AND CREATION OF STATE BANK
SASCO calls on the ANC to fully adopt the National policy conference resolution to change the ownership of the reserve bank to be under the control of the state and ensure independence. The SARB has an enormous role in ensuring a balanced Monetary policy, the policy ought to curtail the inflation in order to manage the rising cost of living. The mandate of the SARB must be expanded through a constitutional amendment to feature the importance of economic development beyond the sole interests on inflation targets.
The ANC must also fully adopt the establishment of a State Owned Bank towards expediting economic development. This is a crucial step towards building a developmental state.
(e) ON MINING POLICY
The mining sector in South Africa is a critical sector, in that from the inception of the mining industry in the country the mineral resource had an elevated aspect of workers exploitation and colonial overtones. The redress in the sector has to meet optimal standards of equity more especially of reversing the past imbalances, one in the main is the question of the mining charter that expresses redress measures of ownership and executive management of the mining companies.
SASCO calls for the ANC to revisit the mining charter in order to achieve a reasonable increase of black ownership percentage of mines and to exponentially increase on black executive management percentages.
SASCO further calls for a just and gradual energy transition in order to protect our coal assets and to keep the coal as our primary mineral resource. The ANC led government must build a plant to process the mineral resources and foster an employment of young skilled engineers, miners and artisans who will uplift the movement’s developmental agenda.
ON GENDER EQUITY, GBV-F, LGBTQI+ AND WOMEN EMANCIPATION
In pursuit of a national democratic revolution, SASCO appreciates the necessity of dismantling the triple oppression of women in the progression towards women emancipation and gender equity. Our standing pledge to end the patriarchal patterns of sustaining an oppressive gendered power frame has been met with minimal success given the conservative society that SASCO finds itself in. We therefore, call an all gender inclusive participation in the socio-economic campaign to discharge a superstructural and substructural transformation in our country fostered by the ANC.
SASCO with its capacity and ability to observe and obey the essence of human rights has placed an overwhelming interest in the creation of safe spaces for the queer gender. We call on the establishment of non binary restrooms in all areas in the country and the ANC led government to lead a campaign taken to our primitive societies to end queer-phobia and embrace the set of emerging gender conscious dynamic approaches towards the marxist revolution.
SASCO calls on the ANC to fully adopt the position outlined in the national policy conference on curbing the scourge of gender based violence and homicide. Gender based violence is the by-product of triple oppression more specifically class oriented oppression which has seen the emergence of the sugar daddy, alternatively a blesser and blessee phenomenon that has facilitated overtime an economic dependency of young women to men. A gender based violence free society has in the most progressive facets a remarkable bias towards the transition to a socialist society.
ON STATE CAPTURE AND CORRUPTION
SASCO welcomes the enormous work done by the ANC led 6th government administration to fight and combat corruption. Since the 54th national conference the ANC has placed active institutions that deal with corruption and malfeasance; in the main being the Integrity Commission (IC) that has been able to deal with a number of cases and maintained its non-bais and impartiality. The ANC 54th National conference had resolved to establish the commission of inquiry into state capture and SASCO calls on the ANC to process the renewal programme cognisant of the shortfalls that beset the movement as it is portrayed in the state capture report.
The 54th national conference also resolved on the step aside policy in order to fight graft by members deployed in government and ANC leadership. The policy has been challenged on numerous fronts, however, SASCO calls on the ANC to reaffirm step side and strengthen it’s capacity to hold leadership of our movement accountable.
ON THE WORKER’S REVOLUTION
In the trace of the evolution of the ANC from it’s elitist beginnings to the progressive and more radical character, SASCO assuredly places the victory of the ANC against the apartheid government in the toiling hands of the working class that demonstrated revolutionary consciousness and militancy in pursuit of the national democratic revolution. It is therefore a heart- wrenching betrayal to the workers that constitute a backbone to the South African struggle for freedom to be on the receiving end of ANC led government and capital exploitation.
The ANC uncharacteristic of working class bias and void of left leaning discipline ushered the onslaught on the collective bargaining agreements; therefore , the non-implementation of the resolution 1 of 2018 collective bargaining agreements remain a heart piercing outcry by workers in the public service and SASCO calls on the ANC to place workers in the upcoming conference at the centre of their strategy formulation in tackling transformation. SASCO firmly calls on the ANC led government to implement resolution 1 of 2018. The working class is also suffering the burden of non-pensionable increment of 3% that is way lesser than the high cost of living as per the cash price index (CPI).
The 55th national conference of the ANC serves as the litmus test of the movements’s preparedness to fearlessly transform this country in favour of the working class and the previously marginalised people. Therefore , SASCO wishes the gigantic oldest liberation movement in Africa an intellectualy capacitating and successful conference.
Issued by SASCO 22nd NEC;
President : Vezinhlanhla Simelane
083 586 5934
Secretary- General : Alungile Kamtshe
072 841 8607