Prioritise economic transformation;
Do not dare to rename QwaQwa Stadium after Hlaudi Motsoeneng
Tuesday, 12 August 2014
The South African Communist Party (SACP) calls for economic transformation and development in the province to take the centre stage, and be used as a platform to drive and intensify social transformation. This call was made by the Provincial Working Committee of the Party after a detailed assessment of the challenges of inequality, unemployment and poverty. In turn, these challenges are a cause and major driver of the many social problems experienced in our communities.
The Provincial Working Committee noted that the Free State growth and development strategy, which should help the province confront these challenges, is outdated and does not move with the times, particularly the perspective of the second, more radical, phase of transition. The strategy is not capable to change the existing economic conditions facing the working people and the poor. The SACP will convene a provincial summit to radicalise economic transformation and development in the province.
The SACP calls for the expansion of the implementation of the National Health Insurance in the province, this following the successful record of the NHI in other parts of the world. The NHI will ensure that the workers and the poor who cannot afford the exorbitant "private health care" are taken care of by the State. The improved conditions in our hospitals and clinics make the province ready and to be the first to go on full NHI implementation.
However, there are frustrations in the public health care system, and these mostly affect the workers and patients. The SACP says this the provincial and national government must move with speed and resolve these problems.
Hlaudi Motsoeneng name change in the province: "a suggestion from Chester Missing?"
The SACP has noted efforts to rename QwaQwa Stadium after one Mr Hlaudi Motsoeneng, the controversially appointed SABC Chief Operations Officer. The SACP rejects this farcical suggestion. This circus ignores the fact that renaming is aimed at removing apartheid names to de-colonise our country.
New names should either restore the original African names as is the case, for example with Mangaung, Polokwane, Tshwane, etc., or be the names of South African struggle heroes, heroes of African liberation struggles or international revolutionaries. The unqualified SABC COO does not fit anywhere in these categories, he does not even represent a shadow of the vision of the national democratic society we seek to achieve - a very important criterion, in our view.
In addition, the SACP calls on all those that are entrusted with the responsibility to run the processes of renaming to do so with care and consideration. We condemn efforts that seek to undermine consultation with the families of the affected names when there is an intention to name some of the public facilities after their family members. We advise any person or department wishing to name a public facility after the late Comrade Thabo Mofutsanyane, among others, to make a formal request to the family as the process requires.
Statement issued by Comrade Mojalefa Simango, SACP Free State Provincial Spokesperson, August 12 2014
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