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A WORKING CLASS PROGRAMME TO RESCUE SOUTH AFRICA • Expropriate and Nationalise Key Monopolies Under Worker-Community Control: The mineral resources, energy generation, and strategic industries currently controlled by mining magnates and parasitic monopolies must be brought into public ownership. We demand that the SONA announce the expropriation, without compensation, of these assets to form the foundation of a democratically planned economy. This is the only way to ensure our resources are used for local beneficiation, creating jobs and serving social need, not private greed. • Launch an Industrialisation and Public Works Plan: To reverse the collapse, we demand the immediate initiation of a massive, state-driven plan to reindustrialise the country, starting with beneficiation of minerals and rebuilding its public infrastructure—from housing and clinics to railways and water systems—creating millions of jobs directly employing workers at a living wage and sourcing from socially owned and nationalised industries. This requires defying the tyranny of the capitalist market and budget austerity. 2. END CLASS WAR IN ENERGY AND SERVICES: FROM COMMODITIES TO PUBLIC GOODS The capitalist management of utilities has created a two-tier system: reliability for industry and the rich, and deliberate "load reduction" and unaffordable tariffs for the working-class and poor. Water, electricity, and transport are not commodities; they are human rights. • We demand the immediate end of all discriminatory blackouts and the free provision of a substantial lifeline of electricity and water to every household, funded by redistributive tariffs that tax wealth to cross-subsidise the poor. • We demand the reversal of all privatisation in these sectors and their consolidation as free, expanded public services under democratic control. 3. CONFRONT THE COLLAPSE OF PUBLIC ORDER AND SOCIAL SERVICES The social fabric of South Africa is tearing under the weight of economic failure. Our communities are besieged by violence and deprived of basic services. • Crime and Violence: The epidemic of violence against women, children, and the elderly is fuelled by desperation and a collapsed social sphere. We demand the SONA outline a Social Reconstruction Plan that tackles the roots: mass youth joblessness, the decay of community institutions, and a failing justice system. This requires properly resourced community safety initiatives and a drastic overhaul of policing and prosecution services. • Failing Public Services: The crises in healthcare, education, and housing are a national emergency. - Healthcare: Announce an immediate mass recruitment of healthcare workers and an emergency refurbishment of public clinics and hospitals. - Education: Commit to eradicating pit latrines, rebuilding dilapidated schools, and guaranteeing scholar nutrition and transport. - Housing & Infrastructure: Launch a concerted, state-driven plan to address the housing backlog and declare a national emergency on water provision and road maintenance. 4. FINANCE THE PROGRAMME BY EXPROPRIATING CAPITALIST WEALTH The funds for this programme are held by the billionaire class, the mining monopolies, and the banks that have profited from our exploitation. We reject any taxes that further burden the working class. • The SONA must announce the implementation of a Wealth Expropriation Act to seize the ill-gotten gains of the capitalist elite. • It must announce the nationalisation of the major banks and financial institutions to direct credit toward social needs, not speculation. • It must repudiate illegitimate and odious debt that shackles the country to imperialist finance institutions. GIWUSA holds no confidence that the incumbent power structures possess the will to break from the capitalist policies destroying South Africa. This statement is therefore not an appeal to them, but a declaration of the programme that the working class itself fights for. It is the only programme that can rescue the country from implosion by placing its resources, its industry, and its future under democratic control for the benefit of its people. We will measure the SONA against this working-class yardstick. Rhetoric will be ignored. Only concrete commitments to this course of action will be recognised as a serious response to the crisis. The workers of South Africa are watching, and we are preparing to mobilise en masse to force the implementation of this survival programme. The future of the country is at stake. GIWUSA, rooted in the principles of socialist internationalism, understands that the crisis in South Africa is only a local manifestation of the global capitalist crisis. Our fight here is intertwined with the struggle of workers worldwide against the same system of exploitation. We do not appeal to the capitalist state and its representatives. We issue these demands as a declaration of the working class's right to survive and our intention to fight for a new society. The SONA will be judged by a single measure: does it announce the beginning of the break with the neoliberal policies that got the country where it is today and the redistribution of power and wealth to the working class? If not, it is merely another chapter in the administration of our oppression and intensifying exploitation. Issued by: The National Executive Committee General Industries Workers Union of South Africa (GIWUSA) For comment call: Mametlwe Sebei – GIWUSA President 081 368 0706 / mametlwesebei@gmail.com https://www.giwusa.org.za/ Back |
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