SACP general secretary Solly Mapaila said on Sunday he had no wish to serve in the government until it was a socialist government.
“I said when I accepted the position that I am not going to the government. Please, do not nominate me. You will waste the name of a communist cadre who could contribute differently,” he said. “We will when there is a socialist government,” Mapaila said.
He was speaking at the launch of Western Cape Red October Month in Khayelitsha on Sunday.
“We work hard to make sure to use positions as a platform to transform the lives of the people,” he said.
Mapaila took a swipe at the Moonshot Pact championed by the DA for a coalition after the 2024 elections.
He described the Moonshot Pact as a capitalist project by former apartheid beneficiaries and new opportunists coming together to displace the ANC-led government from office.
“That is the fundamental problem we face.”
Mapaila also took aim at the government, saying it was a lie that the government has no money and lashed out at the austerity measures that are being introduced.
“It is a lie that the government does not have money. I am ready for public debate. I want the president of the country, minister of finance or the governor of the Reserve Bank to have a public debate.
“We are issuers of money. We should fund public programmes. We can’t sit on poverty when we control the Central Bank.”
Mapaila accused ministers of not implementing resolutions of the ANC conferences on various matters and complained that the ANC’s 2019 manifest reviews were not touching on fundamental issues.
“Government in this country is controlled by the capital. This time I am prepared to go for a public debate with the government, even the president.
“If we can’t debate behind closed doors, we can’t keep quiet forever.”
Mapaila warned that the “bourgeoisie capital” has determined that the ANC and its allies should lose political power.
“That is why the national democratic revolution has challenges. The South African bourgeoisie capital has decided that the ANC must be removed from political office.”
He said the “bourgeoisie capital” believed that the ANC could not guarantee its profitability. He said the national democratic revolution was being derailed and its character was in stagnation.
“It has features of regression,” he said.
He noted with concern the diminishing character of non-racialism, non-sexist and inequality that pointed to the principal point of regression of the “revolution”.
Mapaila also called on SACP activists to have a programme to deal with criminals.
“Crime in the Western Cape has gone out of control and it can’t be business as usual. We don’t need to do programmes in a symbolic form,” he said.
Mapaila called for THE mobiliSation of street committees and communities in the fight against crime. He decried the high cost of living and suggested trading options for South Africa with countries such as Venezuela.
He complained that the US was trading with Venezuela yet it did not want South Africa to do the same.
“This is part of the crisis of this country.”
Cape Times