Young Communist League of South Africa Gauteng Province Provincial Lekgotla Declaration Public release, 18 February 2013 We, the Young Communist League of South Africa in the province of Gauteng convened in our Provincial Lekgotla over the weekend, from 16 to 17 February 2012 in Kempton Park. This was the 2nd Lekgotla of our 3rd Congress Provincial Executive Committee (PEC) and its 10th Plenary Session since election in November 2011. As the PEC we were augmented by delegates from all our five districts in the province – three District Office Bearers, in addition to District Secretaries and Chairpersons who are ex-officio members. This is our declaration, in which we cover only a few of the decisions we have adopted but capture the general thrust of the direction we shall advance. We assessed the state of the youth in our province. It is the African youth in particular and blacks in general with women the hardest hit that is suffering from the worst impact and consequences of the many challenges facing our society, including inequality, poverty and unemployment. In addition to the persisting legacy of race and gender inequalities, more and more there are widening inequalities within the historically oppressed, partly reflecting uneven access to the fruits of our 18 years old democracy. Increasingly the primacy of class contradictions in our society is exposed. Rather than all, it is particularly working class youth that is in the receiving end of the challenges facing our society as a result of economic exploitation that is suffered by the working class as a whole. Accordingly, we reaffirmed the ever correctness of the strategic thrust of the following principles adopted and elaborated in the Strategy and Tactics by the African National Congress (ANC) at its Consultative Conference (25 April to 1 May 1969 in Morogoro, Tanzania). …our nationalism must not be confused with chauvinism or narrow nationalism of a previous epoch. It must not be confused with the classical drive by an elitist group among the oppressed people to gain ascendancy so that they can replace the oppressor in the exploitation of the mass. We do not understand the complexities which will face a people’s government during the transformation period nor the enormity of the problems of meeting economic needs of the mass of the oppressed people. But one thing is certain – in our land this cannot be effectively tackled unless the basic wealth and the basic resources are at the disposal of the people as a whole and are not manipulated by sections or individuals be they White or Black. We shall advance this strategic thrust as part of our political programme. The national democratic revolution is under threat from within. Convening just a month after the ANC’s 53rd National Conference (December 2012, Mangaung) we assessed we assessed this conference in detail. We distinguished individuals from what they say and who they really are and do in practice. First and foremost we joined the National Committee in congratulating the ANC for the progressive policy positions adopted in Mangaung and the leadership collective elected, as led by President Jacob Zuma. In our province there is a sense of bitterness and anger from some among the dominant elitist groupings who did not want the present national leadership of the ANC elected in Mangaung. This is accompanied by a two-forked tongue vacillation, involving on the one hand “public endorsement” of the newly elected national leadership cautious of the rules of discipline but on the other hand ridiculing it and disrupting unity undercover through outcries of unity. Seeking some “unity” with this tendency there have emerged a variant of post-Mangaung right-wing opportunism. The common thread between these elitist groupings which constitute a provincial version of the new tendency is a drive for self-enrichment through tenders from ascendency to organisational power and self-reproduction in it, thereby constituting a threat to the national democratic revolution from within. The elitist groupings are determined to prey on access to local and provincial governments, associated agencies and a combination of direct and arm’s length control over the levers of power to exercise influence on the distribution of opportunities. In the process patronage is dispensed to loyalists, decent is brutalised and corruption thrives. The elitist groupings are already involved in the exploitation of our people and manipulation of public resources. The success of the national democratic revolution depends partly in combating these elitist groupings and their tendencies. We declared we shall live up to this task. The Youth Right to Work Campaign We are emerging from our Lekgotla reinvigorated to fight against inequality, unemployment and their fundamental constitutive driver, exploitation. We broadened our approach and adopted a ‘Youth Right to Work Campaign’. This represents our innovation in the struggle towards the progressive realisation of the availability of productive work for all. It involves a combination of measures to expand access to work for the youth to make a living, a shift away from jobs alone as the only “solution” to unemployment, and therefore the intensification of a fight against exploitation as the central driver of inequality, poverty and unemployment. Joe Slovo Right to Learn Campaign Our determination to advance the Joe Slovo Right Campaign is reinforced. The campaign is aimed at progressively realising free and quality education. Through the campaign we seek to improve the quality of learning and teaching, and ensure that schools, colleges and universities not only reopen smoothly annually but also run smoothly throughout. Our immediate activities include intensifying the fight against racism in education as well as systematic exclusion based class, race and gender. As part and parcel of this campaign we shall soon unveil a programme of mass action against Revonia Primary School which is notorious for these exclusions. We pledge our support to the provincial education department’s appeal against the Supreme Court of Appeal judgement that has the effect to allow schools such as Revonia Primary School to exercise such exclusions. We will integrate academic support programmes in the Joe Slovo Right to Learn Campaign, aimed at assisting learners in schools and students in colleges and universities to pass in record time with outstanding achievements. Each one of our districts and the PEC will adopt schools that did not perform well in the 2012 National Senior Certificate examination. Health The provincial health department has been plunged is a series of crises over the years. Some have become millionaires out of these crises. The liberals and elitist groupings from among the historically oppressed have above all focused on the crisis of payments to service providers. This is in line with advancing private accumulation out of health. We reject attempts that seek to attribute the crises exclusively on “under funding”. Corruption in Gauteng Shared Services Centre (GSSC) previously and the department of health and social development as well as failure to enforce strict adherence to the principles of ‘Batho Pele” are part and parcel of the underlying drivers of the multiple crises including poor work resulting in disabilities and deaths that could otherwise have been prevented and avoided in our provincial. We support the general approach that seeks to intensify a shift away from the currently curative oriented health system to a preventive oriented health care. This will not only save resources but will ensure that people live long. Progressive Youth Alliance We reaffirmed our commitment in the Progressive Youth Alliance mainly comprising of the YCL of SA, the ANC Youth League and student formations Congress of South African Students and South African Student Congress. We adopted a radical programme of action to build the Progressive Youth Alliance strong. The central thrust of this programme of action is to advance the South African Communist Party’s programme – ‘The South African Road to Socialism’ among the youth as one of the important strata and significant proportion of our province’s population. This includes building strong and campaigning YCL of SA branches in colleges and universities. End. Enquiries: Alex Mashilo – Provincial Secretary 082 9200 308 Takalani Mmbengeni – Deputy Provincial Secretary 082 625 1706
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