The South African Communist Party (SACP) said on Monday that accusations of ”ultra-leftism” would merely divert the attention of the tripartite alliance away from urgent problems such as poverty, unemployment and HIV/Aids.
The most recent criticism on the ”ultra-left” appeared on Friday in the online publication ANC Today.
In that article Dumisani Makhaye, a member of the African National Congress’s (ANC) national executive committee, accused ”groupings within the SACP and Cosatu” of ”a sustained campaign to discredit the efforts of both the ANC and the democratic state… not hesitating to contradict and challenge the publicly expressed positions of the ANC… entryism (and) conspiratorial methods.”
SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande told reporters in Johannesburg on Monday that this was ”a series of allegations without a single shred of evidence provided”.
SACP representative Mazibuko Jara said his party’s members were not entryists and had never denied ”their revolutionary role” in 81 years.
Nzimande said the SACP appealed to delegates to the forthcoming 51st conference of the ANC not to allow themselves to be diverted by such ”labelling” tactics.
Referring to draft resolutions submitted to the ANC conference, Nzimande said: ”As ANC spokespersons themselves have underlined, these draft resolutions once more affirm the ANC as a political movement of the left.”
Nzimande said the central committee of the SACP — at its final plenary session of the year from November 28 to 30 — remained committed to its ”Red October campaign for a comprehensive social protection system”.
He said the SACP central committee ”underlined the safe-guarding and fostering of the unity of the ANC and its alliance. We cannot afford fragmentation or distraction at this time”.
The SACP central committee noted that a report released by Statistics South Africa in mid-November showed that the average South African household became poorer between October 1995 and October 2000.
”The income share of the poorest 20% of households dropped from a miserly 1,9% in 1995 to an even more shocking 1,6% by 2000.”
At the same time the central committee noted ”access to health-care, education, safe drinking water, electricity for lighting, phones and formal housing” had all improved over the same period.
The SACP had registered thousands of children for the child support grant. The SACP supported a basic income grant (BIG), extending the child support grant, and public works programmes.
Nzimande said ”there may be many legitimate uncertainties in regard to implementation and feasibility” of a BIG, but urged the ANC conference not to dismiss the BIG proposal out of hand.
The SACP welcomed the proposal to extend the child support grant to children up to 14 years, and hoped this could be further extended to 18.
The SACP said the abolition of means testing for the child support grant should be considered. Means testing consumed resources in administration, and often excluded the poorest, who could not afford to travel to town to get ID photographs taken and documents — such as birth certificates — issued.
The central committee welcomed the high-level negotiations at the National Economic Development and Labour Council on a national treatment and prevention plan for HIV/Aids. ? Sapa