The South African Communist Party (SACP) said in its year-end statement that the ‘private profit motive’ was to blame for soaring unemployment, and that an economic turnaround was ‘inconceivable’ without an expanded role for the state in the economy.
The party called for an ‘intensification of the struggle against capitalist exploitation, altogether (sic) with its neo-liberal policy regime’, and urged unions to redouble their efforts in ‘defending state-owned enterprises against the resurgence of the neo-liberal agenda of private profiteering, exploitation and associated wealth-accumulation practices’.
The SACP statement said: ‘A prosperous publicly-owned sector, supporting and supported by a flourishing co-operatives sector, is crucial to employment creation, as well as to reducing poverty and inequality in our society. Developmentally effective state-owned enterprises will also go a long way in expanding access to the practical component of professional, technical and vocational training qualifications. In particular, they will expand access to apprenticeships, learnerships, experiential training and other forms of recognised workplace skills development programmes.
‘The SACP calls for a renewed focus in holding to account and bringing to book all those who have been responsible for bad governance, mismanagement and looting of our state-owned enterprises and other public entities.
‘A turnaround of our economy is inconceivable without a turnaround and strategic expansion of the publicly-owned sector to support national development. This must include transformation of the financial sector and building a thriving developmental state banking sector.’