WEDNESDAY, 5.00PM:
THE South African Communist Party on Wednesday hit out at the government’s growth, employment and redistribution policy (Gear), saying it is misplaced to address socio-economic needs, and has manifestly failed to reach its stated targets.
Addressing the SACP’s 10th congress at Crown Mines in Johannesburg, SACP general secretary Charles Nqakula said: “We remain convinced that Gear is the wrong policy. It was wrong in the process that developed it, it is wrong in its overall strategic conception, and it is wrong in much of its detail.”
Union federation Cosatu, the third partner in the African National Congress-led alliance, has long opposed Gear as it believes the policy is slowing the country’s transformation.
“The proponents of Gear in the past month have assured us that Gear is working, notwithstanding the fact that there is a net loss of jobs as opposed to Gear’s promised increases, and that growth targets are way off,” Nqakula said.
Nqakula’s major attack, however, was at Gear’s focus on reducing the budget deficit through stablisation policies. The SACP’s approach, he said, is that “macro-economic policy should also be about transformation, not just stabilisation”.
“At the end of the day we cannot allow our entire transformation struggle to be held hostage by conservative approaches to the budget deficit.”
WEDNESDAY, 6.30PM
President Nelson Mandela stood firmly behind Gear on Wednesday afternoon, saying it is a fundamental policy of the government and the African National Congress will not bow to pressure from its alliance partners, the South African Communist Party and Cosatu, to change it. Mandela, speaking at Crown Mines in Johannesburg at the opening of the 10th congress of the SACP, was reacting directly to an attack on the policy by SACP general secretary Charles Nqakula and his deputy Jeremy Cronin.
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