The main beneficiaries of economic transformation have been white capitalists who remain the Induna (chief) while the black middle class are given jobs in areas such as human resources, Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said on Friday.
”They remain as oppressed by the white oligarchy as the working class,” Vavi told the 12th national congress of the South African Communist Party (SACP) in Port Elizabeth.
Vavi, who received a standing ovation at the end of his speech, said the SACP and Cosatu are in the middle of one of the biggest struggles since the 1980s and 1990s.
He warned that the patience of the working class is wearing thin. They are demanding that the benefits of sustained economic growth should be shared with the people who created the wealth.
As the class battles intensify, ”we can expect the attacks on all of us to intensify”, Vavi said.
With regard to relations with the African National Congress, he said that Cosatu wants the alliance to be restructured specifically in the areas of strategy and deployment, so that no single organisation decides strategy and deployment on its own.
Vavi said that the SACP and Cosatu have achieved a considerable amount together.
He asked: ”Imagine what could have happened if the abuse of power and of state resources to persecute political opponents had been left unchallenged?”
And, he asked, would the five-year plan for the fight against HIV/Aids have been rolled out ”if the SACP had not stood up and said there is a crisis?”.
Looking at what the SACP and Cosatu have achieved at the recent policy conference of the ANC, Vavi said if the resolutions are adopted at the national conference at the end of the year and implemented by government, this will be a shift to the left.
Vavi said the task of the SACP and Cosatu is to defeat the agents of new capital and they need to be ”more aggressive” in pursing this agenda.
”We should not embrace short-termism. We are in this for the long haul.” — Sapa