Johannesburg - The Young Communists League (YCL) has blamed lack of leadership and Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan for Eskom’s rolling electricity blackouts that have intensified in the past few weeks across the country.
Speaking at the SACP national congress at the Birchwood Hotel and OR Tambo Conference Centre in Ekurhuleni, YCL national secretary Tinyiko Ntini told delegates the organisation believed load shedding was man-made.
”It is our belief that the ongoing load shedding is man-made and exacerbated by lack of leadership at the power utility. We wish to lobby this congress to come clean on this matter and demand heads to roll in the entity, including the Ministry of Public Enterprises, which hasn’t been effective but (is) rather a propeller for privatisation,” Ntini said.
He said the YCL would lobby the delegates to liquidate the Department of Public Enterprises and consider taking back all entities to their legislative departments.
Ntini also criticised President Cyril Ramaphosa’s economic reconstruction and recovery plan, saying the country’s policy document aimed at stimulating equitable and inclusive economic growth is nothing but a blueprint for neo-liberalism and won’t lead to recovery.
According to the YCL, to address the crisis of sky-rocketing youth unemployment, including the massive problem of young people who are neither in employment, nor education and training, will need a united front in rolling back the neo-liberal policy regime.
Ntini called on the inherently neo-liberal National Treasury’s transformation and its policy intervention to be confronted.
He added that there was a re-emergence of the hegemony of the neo-liberal agenda within the state and a leadership that seeks to be more powerful in the state and against the culture, policy perspectives and traditions of the ANC, which wants to project the state as a mandate-giver to the governing party.
”There is a deliberate attempt to relegate the ANC to be a part of the state machinery and cease influence over state decisions. This is done deliberately to enforce the neo-liberal agenda sponsored by international monetary institutions such as the IMF (International Monetary Fund),” Ntini added.
The YCL has reiterated the resolution of the SACP’s special national congress last year to contest state power during elections.
”We aren’t orphans to the ANC, neither does our electoral contest through the ANC mean that the ANC is a bigger sister of the SACP.
“The time is now indeed, to build a radical socialist movement in defending the national democratic revolution and ultimately deliver a socialist order in the country,” Ntini explained.
He said the time has come for the SACP to isolate the question of electoral contest from the existence and need for the alliance.